FOREWORD

To the IIM Indore Community

Prodlab presents to you the 2nd edition of The Product Management Casebook.

The purpose of this casebook is to assist the students of IIM Indore in their preparation
for product management related case interviews conducted during placements.

We try to present to you a single source of case preparation for product management,
and we hope to familiarize you with the process and the type of questions usually
asked.

We intend to keep updating this casebook with both cases and related guesstimates in
the coming weeks – so that it can turn into a comprehensive reference document for
preparing for product management roles.

Making the most of this Casebook

We would recommend the reader to look at the problem statement and practice the
case in groups of 3-4.

Once done with the case, you may refer to the approach to solve it. The cases
presented help develop a logical flow to approaching them, and we advise the reader
not to limit the structure or the solution given.

You may develop your own structural flow.

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Table of Contents

FOREWORD
To the IIM Indore Community
Making the most of this Casebook
INTRODUCTION 4

What is Product Management? 5

What does a PM do? 5

PM CONCEPTS 6
Major frameworks 7
1. Story Telling 7
2. Product Design: CIRCLES Method 8
3. Metrics AARRR: Startup Metrics for Pirates 9
4. Metrics for UX design: HEART 10
5. 4 Quadrants Time Management: Matrix 11
6. 5 Why’s Framework 13
7. Prioritization 14
Kano Model 14
RICE Framework 15
Impact-Effort Matrix 18
8. The Four Ps Model / 4P’s of Marketing 20
9. 5 C’s of Product Pricing 22
10. REAN : Digital Marketing Strategy Model 23
11. AIDA(R) Framework 24
12. RFM : Customer Segmentation Model 25
13. Porter 5 Forces 26
14. Business Model Canvas 27
15. STAR / SOAR (Storytelling) 28
16. DIGS 30
17. 5Es Framework 30
Product Roadmap 31
Wireframing 32
Product Lifecycle 33
User persona and journey 37

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 Metrics 40
1. MAUs / DAUs 40
2. Customer Conversion Rate 41
3. Churn & Customer Retention Rate 41
4. NPS & CSAT Score 42
5. CLTV 43
6. CAC 43
7. MRR / ARR 44
Cloud Technology 45
Agile Project Management 50
Waterfall model 51
Agile v/s Waterfall 53
GUESSTIMATES 54
Guesstimate -1 55
Guesstimate -2 57
Guesstimate -3 59

NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT 62

Interview -1 63
Interview -2 66
Interview -3 70
Interview -4 74
Interview -5 79
Interview -6 81
Interview -7 84
Interview -8 87
PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT 90
Whatsapp 91
Amazon 94
Google Maps 97
Netflix 100
Amazon Pay 103
Uber 105
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS 107
Interview - 1 108
Interview - 2 111

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PRODUCT METRICS 115
Design a CRM application for Amazon Delivery Partners and Personnel 116
GO TO MARKET 119
Interview - 1 120
Interview - 2 123
NEW USE CASES 125
1. Zoom 126
2. BigBasket 130

IIM INDORE INTERVIEW EXPERIENCES 133

SUMMERS 2020 134
SUMMERS 2021 148

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INTRODUCTION

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 What is Product Management?
● Product management is an organizational function that guides every step of a product’s
lifecycle — from development to positioning and pricing — by focusing on the product
and its customers first and foremost.
● To build the best possible product, product managers advocate for customers within the
organization and make sure the voice of the market is heard and heeded.
● Thanks to this focus on the customer, product teams routinely ship better-designed and
higher-performing products.
● In tech, where entrenched products are quickly uprooted by newer and better solutions,
there is more need than ever for an intimate understanding of customers and the ability
to create tailored solutions for them. That’s where product management comes in

What does a PM do?

● A product manager is the person who identifies the customer need and the larger
business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill, articulates what success looks
like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality .
● Fifteen years ago, Ben Horowitz, CEO of Opsware, called the product manager the
“CEO of the product.”
● Specific responsibilities vary depending on the size of the organization. In larger
organizations, for instance, product managers are embedded within teams of specialists.
Researchers, analysts, and marketers help gather input, while developers and designers
manage the day-to-day execution, draw up designs, test prototypes, and find bugs.
These product managers have more help, but they also spend more time aligning these
stakeholders behind a specific vision.
● On the flip side, product managers at smaller organizations spend less time getting
everyone to agree, but more time doing the hands-on work that comes with defining a
vision and seeing it through

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PM CONCEPTS

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 1. Major frameworks
1. Story Telling
Storytelling is actually the oldest way to deliver a message – or to explain the world. Ancient
people used storytelling. The Bible uses storytelling. Your uncle uses storytelling. Product
Managers use storytelling. You’re using storytelling for yourself and your business, even if you
don’t call it exactly that. It is the foundation for effective communication in general and a solid
foundation for a couple of the frameworks listed below as well.

Storytelling at its most basic structure is about a Situation / Problem (Hero and Enemy), Needs
(Conflict and Pain Points) and a Solution. Well, that’s right there are 3 integral elements to be
managed by Product Managers.

If we follow this structure it makes it easy for the listener to follow. Story is “a thing that does”
rather than “a thing that is”. It is a tool with measurable utility rather than an object for aesthetic
admiration.

In its basic form these are the Steps:

Step 1: You — What, Who is this story about?

Step 2: Need — Problems, pain points, Needs,

Issues, Challenges

Step 3: Go — Cross the threshold into ‘the upside

down’

Step 4: Search and Alternatives — How can “you”

achieve your goal?

Step 5: Find a Solution — The meeting with the

Goddess

Step 6: Take / Apply

Step 7: Return (How does this relate to the Goal)

Step 8: Wrapping up

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2. Product Design: CIRCLES Method
In my mind the Circles Method is based on the above storytelling concept. Very similar to DIGS,
just adapted for its purpose.

The CIRCLES Method™ is a framework on what makes a complete, thoughtful response to any
product design. It’s an aid that prevents us from forgetting a step. You can also think of it as a
checklist or guideline

The 5 W's & H also help product managers in asking the right question in the Comprehend
Situation stage and gather information about the problem before jumping into solution or some
conclusion.

● What is it?
● Who is it for?
● Why do they need it?
● When is it available?
● Where is it available?
● How does it work?”

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3. Metrics AARRR: Startup Metrics for Pirates

A very helpful framework by Dave McClure, 500 Startups for product managers who need to
define success metrics for any product or feature.
● Acquisition — How users find you / where or what channels do users come from?

e.g. Tracking customer sign ups for a service.

● Activation — An initial great experience?

● Attention — Do they come back and revisit over time?
● Revenue — Can you monetize any of this behavior?
● Referral — Do they like it enough to tell their friends?

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4. Metrics for UX design: HEART
The HEART framework was designed by Kerry Rodden, Hilary Hutchinson and Xin Fu, from
Google’s research team.

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5. 4 Quadrants Time Management: Matrix
We live in a time pressured world where it is common to have multiple overlapping commitments
that all require immediate attention now. Urgency is no longer reserved for special occasions,
they are an everyday occurrence. Missing deadlines is not the path to advancement or even
good job reviews. So how can one manage the flood of responsibilities, do excellent work and
maintain a positive frame of mind? The Covey time management grid is a simple yet effective
method of organizing your priorities. As you can see from the grid below, there are four
quadrants organized by urgency and importance.

Before responding to any request, filter them through the Matrix.

Quadrant I – important deadlines with high urgency

The first quadrant contains tasks and responsibilities that need immediate attention.
Quadrant II – long-term development and strategizing
The second quadrant is for items that are important without requiring immediate action. Covey
points out that this quadrant should be used for long-term strategizing.
Quadrant III – distractions with high urgency
The third quadrant is reserved for tasks that are urgent, without being important. Covey
recommends minimizing or even eliminating these tasks as they do not contribute to your
output. Delegation is also an option here.
Quadrant IV – activities with little to no value

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The fourth and last quadrant focuses on tasks and responsibilities that do not yield any
value—items that are unimportant and not urgent. These time wasters should be eliminated at
any costs.
The Bottom Line: Do Important things first!

Using The Matrix

The matrix has many applications, two will be suggested here. The first and most obvious use of
the matrix is to take your current ‘to-do’ list and sort all the activities into the appropriate grid.
Then, assess the amount of time you have to accomplish the lists and, if necessary, reallocate
activities.

The second approach is a one week assessment strategy. Make six copies of the matrix and
use one matrix for each day of the week, listing all activities and time spent. At the end of the
week, Combine the five individual day data onto one summary matrix (number 6) and calculate
the percent of time in each matrix. Then evaluate how well your time is spent and whether your
workload needs to be reorganized.

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6. 5 Why’s Framework
How to get the requirement right? What is the exact problem? Are you solving the right
problem? This 5 Why’s framework helps product managers to get to the root cause easier.

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7. Prioritization
Once you decide the list of features or request which you plan to work, but wondering which one
to pick or test first, below prioritization frameworks help you in that:

● Weighted Scoring
● Impact vs Effort
● Weighted scoring

Kano Model
Your good product management skills will come into play during the process. Suggestions
regardless of the prioritization method you choose:

Approach prioritization as a team activity; not only does it create buy-in on the team, you get
different perspectives. It’s also a lot more fun.
Limit the number of items you are prioritizing – focus on the biggest items rather than the
details.
Categorize and group initiatives together into strategic themes (for example, “improving
satisfaction” for a particular persona would be a good way to group).

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Before you begin prioritizing, it’s helpful if you understand the customer value for each initiative.
The customer value should be rooted in evidence that you’ve gathered from customers rather
than your opinions.
Before you begin, have a rough estimate of cost. Even T-shirt sizing of “small” “medium” and
“large” will be helpful during the process.

RICE Framework

RICE—which stands for Reach, Impact, Confidence and Effort—is a simple prioritization
framework for quantifying the potential value of features, project ideas and initiatives. A RICE
score helps product managers quantify the estimated value of a feature or project idea so
they’re easier to sort when it’s time to decide the order they should be worked on.

The formula looks like this:

Product managers have a hundred different initiatives they can work on at any given time. The
main issue of prioritization comes down to knowing what to work on first. An easy framework like
RICE can standardize this process for product managers.

Reach

The first factor in determining your RICE score is to get a sense of how many people you
estimate your initiative will reach in a given timeframe.

You have to decide both what “reach” means in this context and the timeframe over which you
want to measure it. You can choose any time period—one month, a quarter, etc.—and you can
decide that reach will refer to the number of customer transactions, free-trial signups, or how
many existing users try your new feature.

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Your reach score will be the number you’ve estimated. For example, if you expect your project
will lead to 150 new customers within the next quarter, your reach score is 150. On the other
hand, if you estimate your project will deliver 1,200 new prospects to your trial-download page
within the next month, and that 30% of those prospects will sign up, your reach score is 360.

Impact

Impact can reflect a quantitative goal, such as how many new conversions for your project will
result in when users encounter it, or a more qualitative objective such as increasing customer
delight.

Even when using a quantitative metric (“How many people who see this feature will buy the
product?”), measuring impact will be difficult, because you won’t necessarily be able to isolate
your new project as the primary reason (or even a reason at all) for why your users take action.
If measuring the impact of a project after you’ve collected the data will be difficult, you can
assume that estimating it beforehand will also be a challenge.

Intercom developed a five-tiered scoring system for estimating a project’s impact:

● 3 = massive impact
● 2 = high impact
● 1 = medium impact
● .5 = low impact
● .25 = minimal impact

Confidence

The confidence component of your RICE score helps you control for projects in which your team
has data to support one factor of your score but is relying more on intuition for another factor.

For example, if you have data backing up your reach estimate but your impact score represents
more of a gut feeling or anecdotal evidence, your confidence score will help account for this.

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As it did with impact, Intercom created a tiered set of discrete percentages to score confidence,
so that its teams wouldn’t get stuck here trying to decide on an exact percentage number
between 1 and 100. When determining your confidence score for a given project, your options
are:

● 100% = high confidence

● 80% = medium confidence
● 50% = low confidence

If you arrive at a confidence score below 50%, consider it a “moonshot” and assume your
priorities need to be elsewhere.

Effort

We have discussed all of the factors to this point—reach, impact, confidence—represent the
numerators in the RICE scoring equation. Effort represents the denominator.

In other words, if you think of RICE as a cost-benefit analysis, the other three components are
all potential benefits while effort is the single score that represents the costs.

Quantifying effort in this model is similar to scoring reach. You simply estimate the total number
of resources (product, design, engineering, testing, etc.) needed to complete the initiative over a
given period of time—typically “person-months”—and that is your score.

In other words, if you estimate a project will take a total of three person-months, your effort
score will be 3. (Intercom scores anything less than a month as a .5.)

Sample RICE implementation:

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Impact-Effort Matrix

An impact effort matrix is a simple yet powerful prioritization tool. It’s designed to help teams get
on the same page and prioritize tasks based on what will offer the most impact with the lowest
amount of effort.

To set up an impact effort matrix, create four quadrants with a “t” in the middle. Label “Impact”
(high-low) on one axis and “Effort” (high-low) on the other axis.

Your four quadrants will be:

● Low Effort, High Impact

● High Effort, High Impact
● Low Effort, Low Impact
● High Effort, Low Impact

Low effort, high impact is the ultimate sweet spot. These are the ultimate wins that should be
prioritized first. They take little time/effort to implement, and they bring the most value to your
business or project goals.

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High effort, high impact is still an important quadrant. Sometimes there’s no way around
putting in a lot of effort to get the high impact you’re hoping for. Prioritize these items, but
understand the amount of effort that will be involved. Deeply consider these items and avoid
having more than one high effort, high impact task on the go at a time.

Low effort, low impact may bring some value to your team. These ideas or tasks won't take
long, and they don’t require much effort, but the impact of these minimal efforts won’t be high.
Keep these items in mind, especially if you experience a lull in work or have extra time, as they
can be accomplished quickly and easily.

High effort, low impact ideas or tasks are not worth your time. These are the tasks that
seemed like a good idea at first, but once you thought it through more, you realized these low
impact ideas aren’t worth the effort. Make sure your team isn’t wasting their time on high effort,
low impact items.

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8. The Four Ps Model / 4P’s of Marketing
4 P’s framework helps in putting the right product at the right price in the right place at the right
time.

· Product – The first of the Four Ps of marketing is a product. A product can be either a
tangible good or an intangible service that fulfills a need or want of consumers. Whether you sell
custom pallets and wood products or provide luxury accommodations, it’s imperative that you
have a clear grasp of exactly what your product is and what makes it unique before you can
successfully market it.

· Price – Once a concrete understanding of the product offering is established we can

start making some pricing decisions. Price determinations will impact profit margins, supply,
demand, and marketing strategy. Similar (in concept) products and brands may need to be
positioned differently based on varying price points, while price elasticity considerations may
influence our next two Ps.

· Promotion – We’ve got a product and a price now it’s time to promote it. Promotion
looks at the many ways marketing agencies disseminate relevant product information to
consumers and differentiate a particular product or service. Promotion includes elements like
advertising, public relations, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing,

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video marketing and more. Each touch point must be supported by a well-positioned brand to
truly maximize return on investment.

· Place – Often you will hear marketers saying that marketing is about putting the right
product, at the right price, at the right place, at the right time. It’s critical then, to evaluate what
the ideal locations are to convert potential clients into actual clients. Today, even in situations
where the actual transaction doesn’t happen on the web, the initial place potential clients are
engaged and converted is online.

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9. 5 C’s of Product Pricing
What is the best price for your products or services? This 5 C’s framework helps to determine
the optimum price tag for your product.

Cost
This is the most obvious component of pricing decisions. You obviously cannot begin to price
effectively until you know your cost

Compatibility / Company objective

Is your pricing approach compatible with your marketing and sales objectives?

Customer
The ultimate judge of whether your price delivers a superior value is the customer.

Competitor
Think about the buyers point of view

Channel: Distribution Channel

Think about the “middlemen”, margins to motivate, value-add they bring.

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10. REAN : Digital Marketing Strategy Model
The question behind this model: “How am I going to reach/engage/activate/nurture my
potential or current customers?

What should your digital strategy look like? How should you market your product? Are you using
the right channels? The REAN model, popularized by Steve Jackson, helps product managers
or product marketers to answer those questions easier.

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11. AIDA(R) Framework
The AIDA framework is also popularly used to optimize marketing channels and communication.
It describes the effect of advertising media and helps to explain how an advertising or marketing
communications message engages and involves consumers in brand choice.

Awareness: creating brand awareness or affiliation with your product or service.

Interest: generating interest in the benefits of your product or service, and sufficient interest to
encourage the buyer to start to research further.
Desire: for your product or service through an ’emotional connection’, showing your brand
personality. Move the consumer from ‘liking’ it to ‘wanting it’.
Action: CTA – Move the buyer to interact with your company and taking the next step ie.
downloading a brochure, making the phone call, joining your newsletter, or engaging in live chat
etc.
Retention: We all know that this is key to upsell, cross-sell, referrals, Advocacy, and the list
goes on.. as companies are also focussing on LTV.

The additional “R” is sometimes added by some Marketers to show the importance of ongoing
relationship building.

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12. RFM : Customer Segmentation Model
The term RFM stands for Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value and it describes a
marketing approach for analyzing customer value which is becoming increasingly popular in the
e-commerce industry where businesses are starting to focus more on retention strategies. It’s a
good customer segmentation technique based on user behavior. It groups customers based on
their history, how recently, how often and how much.

● Recency
● Frequency
● Monetization

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13. Porter 5 Forces
Porter’s Five Forces is a simple but powerful tool for understanding the competitiveness of your
product, and for identifying your strategy’s potential profitability. It helps you for product
strategy & roadmap planning.

Threat of New Entry. Your position can be affected by people’s ability to enter your market. So,
think about how easily this could be done.

Threat of Substitution. This refers to the likelihood of your customers finding a different way of
doing what you do.

Supplier Power. This is determined by how easy it is for your suppliers to increase their prices.

Buyer Power. How easy it is for buyers to drive your prices down.

Competitive Rivalry: This looks at the number and strength of your competitors.

By thinking about how each force affects you, and by identifying its strength and direction, you
can quickly assess your product position in the market. You can then look at what strategic
changes you need to make to deliver long-term profit.

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14. Business Model Canvas
The business model canvas is a great tool to help you understand a business model in a
straightforward, structured way. Using this canvas will lead to insights about the customers you
serve, what value propositions are offered through what channels, and how your company
makes money. It can be applied perfectly well for a product where it provides a high-level,
comprehensive view of the various strategic details required to successfully bring a product to
market. The exact ingredients may vary, but these are some of the typical components included:

Customer segments—Who is going to use this product?

Product value propositions—What is this going to do for the customer to make their life/job
better?

Revenue streams—How will the company make money from this product?

Channels—How will the product be sold or distributed?

Customer relationships—What is the success and support strategy for new customers?

Key partners—What other companies or individuals are part of the development and
go-to-market strategy?

Key activities—What must happen internally to release this product?

Key resources—What people, materials and budget are required to pull this off?

Cost structure—How much will it cost to develop, manufacture, distribute, and support the
product?

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15. STAR / SOAR (Storytelling)
STAR or SOAR is a popular method to tell stories about accomplishments in general and of
course also during interviews.

Situation
Task
Action
Result

I do like the SOAR framework which is very similar, however, it follows the storytelling
methodology better. It is more engaging.

Situation
Objective and Obstacles
Action
Result

Situation
This is where you set the scene. You’re telling a story and it also pays to know your audience.
What are the relevant details that make the story pop and what does your audience care about?
Consider similar situations your audience finds themselves in today. They’re listening to you

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because they need someone or something to be the solution to a challenge, so they’ll imagine
you know the solution if you solved a similar problem in the past.

“Our 2020 was plagued with unsuccessful product launches. We were way off on the demand
and our go-to-market strategy was too rigid, which made changes too costly, so our launches
fell short of our goals.”

Objective and Obstacles

What was your objective and what was in the way? Again, you want this to align with your
audience.

“Doing more of the same was a recipe for failure, but it’s not easy to make changes in a large
organization. As a Product Director accountable for successful launches, I needed to convince
my VP of what I knew we needed- more agile software and a different set of market indicators to
guide the product.”

Action
What action was taken? Dramatizing what it took to get this result is critical, make sure they
understand what it took. For interviews, elaborate on the combination of hard work and skill it
took to make this happen, to convince your audience about past changes needed for a product,
and elaborate on what tasks and resources were needed to overcome the obstacle.

“So I conducted market research and contracted with a data scientist to identify the most
accurate market indicators of the last 5 years, then I demoed 5 different tools to see which
software gave us the flexibility we needed. I pitched my VP and she gave me the go-ahead to
retrain my team, then we got to work.”

Result
For interviews, you can refer back to the result on your resume and expand on it. This is where
you can talk about the impact of that result on the company, team members, etc.

“The team was excited about the new challenge and I was right about the new market
indicators. Our product ended up 8x more profitable than any other product that year. While I led
the effort I can’t take all the credit- my VP went out on a limb for me and my team executed
flawlessly. I’m really proud of what we accomplished.”

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16. DIGS
A slightly adapted version to STAR is the DIGS framework by Lewis C. Lin which also helps to
answer the behavioral question in a structured and impactful way. It is closer to the storytelling
methodology and emphasis on creating “higher” stakes.
Dramatize the situation
Indicate the alternative
Go through what you did
Summarize your project

17. 5Es Framework

Used for building the different stages of the customer experience. It can be used to help uncover
product improvement opportunities easily.

Entice: What event triggers a user to enter the UX funnel?

Enter: What are the first few steps in the UX funnel?

Engage: What task(s) is the user trying to accomplish?

Exit: How does the user complete the task?

Extend: What follow-up actions occur after the user completes the task?

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 2. Product Roadmap
A product roadmap is a plan of action for how a product or solution will evolve over time.
Product owners use roadmaps to outline future product functionality and when new features will
be released. When used in agile development, a roadmap provides crucial context for the
team's everyday work and should be responsive to shifts in the competitive landscape.
A product roadmap is essential to communicating how short-term efforts match long-term
business goals. Understanding the role of a roadmap—and how to create a great one—is key
for keeping everyone on your team headed in the same direction.
While it's common for the roadmap to show what you’re building, it’s just as important to show
why. Items on the roadmap should be clearly linked to your product strategy, and your roadmap
should be responsive to changes in customer feedback and the competitive landscape.
Product owners use roadmaps to collaborate with their teams and build consensus on how a
product will grow and shift over time. Agile teams turn to the roadmap to keep everyone on the
same page and gain context for their everyday work and future direction.
Roadmaps come in several different forms and serve a variety of audiences:

Internal roadmap for the development team: These roadmaps can be created in several
ways, depending on how your team likes to work. Some common versions include the detail
about the prioritized customer value to be delivered, target release dates and milestones. Since
many development teams use agile methodologies, these roadmaps are often organized by
sprints and show specific pieces of work and problem areas plotted on a timeline.

Internal roadmap for executives: These roadmaps emphasize how teams' work supports
high-level company goals and metrics. They are often organized by month or by quarter to show
progress over time towards these goals, and generally include less detail about detailed
development stories and tasks.

Internal roadmap for sales: These roadmaps focus on new features and customer benefits in
order to support sales conversations. An important note: avoid including hard dates in sales
roadmaps to avoid tying internal teams to potentially unrealistic dates.

External roadmap: These roadmaps should excite customers about what’s coming next. Make
sure they are visually appealing and easy to read. They should provide a high-level, generalized
view of new features and prioritized problem areas to get customers interested in the future
direction of the product.

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 3. Wireframing
A wireframe is a schematic or blueprint that is useful for helping you, your programmers and
designers think and communicate about the structure of the software or website you're building.

Benefits of wireframes:
● Wireframes help get your message across
● Wireframes help you nail down the interface
● Wireframes result in easy to use software and websites
● Wireframes save you time and adjustment work later

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 4. Product Lifecycle
The product life cycle is the process a product goes through from when it is first introduced into
the market until it declines or is removed from the market. The life cycle has four
stages—introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

While some products may remain in a prolonged maturity state for some time, all products
eventually phase out of the market due to several factors including saturation, increased
competition, decreased demand, and dropping sales

Companies use PLC analysis (the process of examining their product's life cycle) to create
strategies to sustain their product's longevity or change it to meet market demand or adapt
with/to developing technologies.

The 4 stages of the Product Life Cycle

Once a product is developed, it typically goes through the four stages of the product life
cycle—from introduction through decline—before eventually being retired from the market.

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1. Introduction

Once a product has been developed, it begins the introduction stage of the PLC. In this stage,
the product is released into the market for the first time. The release of a product is often a
high-stakes time in the product's life cycle, although it does not necessarily make or break the
product's eventual success.

During the introduction stage, marketing and promotion are at a high, and the company often
invests quite a bit of effort and capital in promoting the product and getting it into the hands of
consumers. This is perhaps best showcased in Apple's (AAPL) famous launch presentations,
which highlight the new features of their newly (or soon-to-be) released products.

It is in this stage that the company is first able to get a sense of how consumers respond to the
product, whether they like it, and how successful it may be. However, it is also often a
heavy-spending period for the company with no guarantee that the product will pay for itself
through sales. Costs are generally very high during this stage, and there is typically little
competition. The principal goals of the introduction stage are to build demand for the product
and get it into the hands of consumers, hoping to later cash in on its growing popularity.

2. Growth

During the growth stage, consumers start talking about the product and buying it. The product
concept is proven as it becomes more popular, and sales increase.

Other companies become aware of the product and its space in the market as it begins to draw
more attention and pull in more revenue. If competition for the product is especially high, the
company may still heavily invest in advertising and promotion of the product to beat out
competitors. As a result of the product growing, the market itself tends to expand. Products are
often tweaked during the growth stage to improve their functions and features.

As the market expands, more competition often drives prices down to make the specific
products competitive. However, sales usually increase in volume and continue to generate
revenue. Marketing in this stage is aimed at increasing the product's market share.

3. Maturity

When a product reaches maturity, its sales tend to slow, signaling a largely saturated market. At
this point, sales may start to drop. Pricing at this stage tends to get competitive, so profit
margins shrink as prices begin to fall due to the weight of outside pressures like increased
competition and lower demand. Marketing at this point is targeted at fending off competition, and
companies often develop new or altered products to reach different market segments.

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Given the highly saturated market, less-successful competitors are often pushed out of
competition during the maturity stage. This is known as the "shake-out point."

In this stage, saturation is reached and sales volume is maxed out. Companies often begin
innovating to maintain or increase their market share, changing or developing their product to
satisfy new demographics or keep up with developing technologies.

The maturity stage may last a long time or a short time depending on the product. For some
brands and products—like Coca-Cola (KO) —the maturity stage lasts a long time and is very
drawn out.

4. Decline

Although companies generally attempt to keep their product alive in the maturity stage as long
as possible, eventual decline is inevitable for virtually every product.

In the decline stage, product sales drop significantly, and consumer behavior changes, as there
is less demand for the product. The company's product loses more and more market share, and
competition tends to cause sales to deteriorate.

Marketing in the decline stage is often minimal or targeted at already-loyal customers, and
prices are reduced.

Eventually, the product is retired out of the market altogether unless it is able to redesign itself to
remain relevant or in-demand. For example, products like typewriters, telegrams, and muskets
are deep in their decline stages (and in fact are almost or completely retired from the market).

What Is PLC Analysis?

PLC analysis is the process of purposefully examining a product and making strategic design,
pricing, and marketing decisions to optimize the product for each stage of its life cycle.
Conducting PLC analysis can help companies determine if their products are servicing the
market they target efficiently so that they can get a clearer idea of when they might need to shift
focus.

By examining their product in relation to the market as a whole, their competitors, sales, and
expenses, companies can better decide how to pivot and develop their product for longevity in
the marketplace.

Examining their products' life cycles—specifically paying attention to where their products are in
the PLC—can help companies determine if they need to develop new products to continue
generating sales, especially if the majority of their products are in the maturity or decline stages
of the product life cycle.

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Popular PLC Pricing Strategies

For companies with products in the introduction phase, there are several pricing models
available to begin generating sales.

Price Skimming

Price skimming is a strategy that involves setting the price of a product high initially, then
lowering it to "skim" additional groups of consumers as the market expands. When first
released, the product is priced high, and demand for it comes only from early adopters, or
consumers who are willing to pay a premium for the latest product. Once that group's demand
has been satisfied, the price is lowered to attract demand from a new, more price-sensitive
group of consumers, and so forth.

Price Penetration

price penetration is a strategy that involves setting the initial price of a product low to penetrate
the market as quickly as possible. This strategy helps build consumer awareness, which
increases demand. The product's price is then increased as demand for it grows.

How Can Businesses Use the Product Life Cycle to Their Advantage?

Companies often run into trouble when they don't understand the introduction stage of their
product's life cycle, especially when customers do not respond well to the initial product (either
because of pricing or the inherent value or usefulness of the product).

It is important to examine product advertising and packaging in addition to pricing. Is the

product meeting the demands and needs of its target market? If sales are stale, many
companies consider shifting their marketing strategy and focus on marketing to new
demographics to help introduce their product to a different segment of the consumer market.

Conducting PLC analysis can help companies learn when they need to reinvent their product or
pivot it in a new direction. For example, online streaming service Netflix pivoted their product by
transitioning away from their DVD-delivery service and toward streaming movies and television
series directly online, which was met with great success.

By examining where their product is in the product life cycle, companies can continue innovating
to keep up with new technology, diversify their offerings, keep up with the competition, and
potentially elongate their product's lifespan in the market.

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 5. User persona and journey
In building a customer-centric business, personas and journey maps are important strategic
tools that help provide an in-depth understanding of who your customers are, what they need,
and how they interact with your company across all touch points.

But more importantly, for sharing customer insights across the organization, these tools can be
critical for building buy-in and helping teams take targeted action to improve customer
experience.

To get started, you’ll want a clear understanding of what customer personas are, why they’re
important, and what makes a good persona. Once you’ve created your personas, you can take
a walk in your customers’ shoes with a journey map.

What are personas?

Personas are fictional, yet believable archetypes you can develop to represent your target
customers. They go deeper than generalized customer segments by having individual names
and stories that reflect personal attributes and behavioral characteristics such as needs,
motivations, attitudes, and pain points.

Why are personas important?

Personas have been commonly used to help organizations develop user-centered design. As
focus on customer experience has increased in recent years, personas are gaining popularity as
a tool to benefit a wide range of departments across an enterprise from sales and customer
service to operations and HR.

Personas can help guide customer-centric practices in various ways:

Develop a deeper understanding of your customers Like Jeff Bezos’ empty chair that represents
“the most important person in the room,” personas help you build empathy with your customers.
What are their needs and goals? What motivates them? Why do they behave in certain ways?
Design processes with the customer in mindPersonas help you understand how your customers
interact with your company throughout the entire lifecycle. Do your processes reflect the true
customer experience, or do they reflect your internal operations? Personas provide awareness
of the many journeys your customers may take, so you can improve them.

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Build stakeholder buy-inTo build support for an enterprise-wide customer experience initiative,
personas – especially those backed with data and research – can help you describe to
executives and stakeholders what a better experience should look like.

Tips for creating highly effective personas

● Align with business objectives to help make your personas powerful tools for teams across
the company. Engage key stakeholders to gain diverse perspectives on goals, processes,
and issues unique to different lines of business that influence the overall customer
experience.
● Use data and research to identify and inform each of your personas. Market segmentation
research, surveys, interviews, and social customer insights are all useful methods. This
qualitative research can complement your understanding of how customers behave with
insight into the “whys,” providing important nuance and detail that humanize your personas.
● Bring your personas to life by crafting engaging, first-person narratives that are realistic
representations of your target customers. Give each persona a name and photo to help foster
a connection to your actual customers. Include a variety of attributes, such as:
○ Demographics: Age, location, education, income, household or family size
○ Personal attributes: Their goals, needs, and interests when they interact with your
company
○ Customer lifecycle: How their needs may vary for different channels and touchpoints, and
how their needs may evolve over time
● Make them eye-catching and memorable with polished, professional quality photos and
information layouts for socializing the personas across your organization. The more “real” you
can make them, the more your teams can identify with them and map their own actions and
attitudes toward delivering the best possible customer experience.

Using personas to map the customer journey

Once you’ve created distinct personas, you can use them to create customer journey maps that
describe each person's experience at various touch points during their lifecycle with your
company. An effective journey map is based on real research and behavior, and should
represent the true customer experience– good or bad. That way you build an accurate picture of
where you need to make improvements as well as where opportunities exist for cross-sell and
up-sell.

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Much of the information for creating a journey map will come from your personas (e.g., their
goals, motivations, key tasks they want to accomplish, and current pain points), which is why it’s
best to create the personas first.

At each step, the journey map should consider factors such as:

● Context – Where is the interaction taking place (e.g., in your store, on the phone, online or
mobile, in social media) What is going on around the customer? How might their current
context influence how they need to interact and what they want to do?
● Progression – How does each step enable the next?
● Emotion – How does the customer feel at each step? (e.g., are they engaged, bored, or
frustrated?)
● With a detailed and insightful customer journey map, your business can more effectively
assess current and proposed processes, identify targeted actions to resolve pain points, and
leverage opportunities for building stronger customer relationships.

The wins from using personas and customer journey maps

Companies can use personas and journey maps to rally employees behind the common goal of
improving and optimizing the customer experience. That shared commitment is key to building a
customer-centric culture. From there, your organization has the best chance to deliver what your
customers want, understand how to exceed their expectations, and create experiences that
nurture brand loyalty.

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 6. Metrics
No metric in isolation can give you all of the information you need, and there are so many out
there which are worth keeping track of. What you keep an eye on will depend on your business
strategy, the industry you’re in, and what stage of growth you’re in. Sometimes, metrics will be
decided for you, as it’s important to keep your product’s KPIs and OKRs aligned with those of
your company.

Here are the major metrics that matter the most for almost all product people:

1. MAUs / DAUs
Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Daily Active Users (DAU) are a great overview of a digital
product’s overall health. If you’re thinking about your long-term growth, these are metrics which
you can’t afford to miss! They help to track whether your user base is growing or not, and how
‘sticky’ your product is for end-users.

Determining what a DAU is will depend entirely on your product. It’s very rarely as simple as
someone who just opens the app and then closes it again. What many product people try to do
is determine a minimum action taken to get value from a product. For a music streaming
service, for example, this might be playing a song. For a messaging app it might be sending one
message.

Similarly, how often someone needs to use your product to qualify as an MAU will also vary
depending on your offering. Do they need to use it once a month, or twenty times a month, to
qualify?

Setting the bar too high can be just as disastrous as setting the bar too low. The question you
need to ask yourself is, ‘how am I providing value for the end-user?’ and base your metrics off of
that.

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2. Customer Conversion Rate
How many people who land on your website or app do what you want them to do? Whether
that’s signing up for the freemium version of your new tool, uploading their photos, or streaming
your content. A low Customer Conversion Rate shows that people are landing on your
app/website, and not really finding what they’re expecting, or they’re disappointed.

Why does this matter? For starters, it helps you identify key drop-off points for users and
features which may not be working. Sure, they may find their way to your new feature, but if
they’re not using it it’s hard to imagine what value it’s providing them with.

Equally, if you find that only a small percentage of your users find your new feature, but the
conversion rate is very high, you know that the fault is not with the feature itself, but
discoverability. Instead of scrapping the feature, go over your user on-boarding process to help
more people find it.

3. Churn & Customer Retention Rate

Customers are great, and getting new customers every day looks great on the growth charts.
But if those customers are dropping off after only a few days (or in the fickle world of apps, a few
seconds!) then you’ve essentially got a leaky bucket instead of a product. There’s no point filling
the bucket with new users unless you can keep them. What you want is a high Customer
Retention Rate, where more people come back than disappear forever.
As Airbnb Growth Product Manager says, companies that haven’t understood retention, and
stepped on the gas too fast with their acquisition, have then lost all of their users very quickly.
Without users, your product is nothing.
If you have a high churn rate, it means that your product isn’t delivering what it promises. On the
other hand, a low churn rate shows that your user base is loyal, and likes your product at least
enough to stick with it.

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4. NPS & CSAT Score
Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) are great ways to measure
the sentiments of your users.
Your NPS score, in a nutshell, tells you how well your product is loved by users. It helps you
segment your users into 3 categories based on how they rate your product out of 10.

1-6 = Detractors
These people use your product, but only out of necessity/lack of alternative, and wouldn’t
recommend it to a friend.
7-8 = Passives
These people like your product, but you haven’t delighted them.
9-10 = Promoters
These people are gold dust. They’re your number one fans and will actively promote your
product within their circles.

Once you have your promoters, you can leverage them in your product-led growth strategy, and
in your marketing.

CSAT is a simpler score, and can be used to measure how happy users are with individual
processes and features. While NPS is more often used to measure how happy customers are
with the entire user journey, CSAT allows you to be more specific. For example, you can ask
users to score your onboarding experience out of ten, once they’ve finished the tutorial. It’s a
one-tap survey which is a common feedback collection method within customer service.

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5. CLTV

CLTV, or Customer Lifetime Value, helps you to put a price tag on your users. It’s very simple to
work out, and can be made more effective by working out the CLTV for each segment of your
users. For example, the value of a B2B/enterprise customer could be higher than your average
B2B customer.

For example, if you run a subscription service that the average customer pays $10 per month
for. If the average customer lifetime is 2 years, that gives each customer in that segment a CLTV
of $240.

6. CAC
CAC, or Customer Acquisition Cost, is a great metric to keep track of alongside your CLTV. Your
customers may be expensive to acquire, but if the CLTV is high enough, it’ll be worth it.
However if you find that your average CLTV is pretty low (let’s say you’re operating on a
freemium model), a high acquisition cost could put you out of business!

To work out your CAC, you’ll need work hand in hand with the product marketing team. You’ll
need to divide the cost of your marketing efforts by the number of customers you acquire. For
example, let’s say you ran a Facebook ad, and spent $2000 on the design, building the landing
page it leads to, and actually showing it to people. If that ad gained you 200 customers, that’s a
CAC of $10.

This is why it’s important to track your CAC alongside your CLTV. If you find yourself spending a
huge marketing budget for customers that have a low CLTV, you may need to find leaner ways
of gaining new users.

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7. MRR / ARR

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) are important
numbers for two reasons. They’re numbers that may fluctuate, but represent reliable income.
That is to say, they’re the amount of revenue you can reasonably predict to be coming in every
month and every year.
For subscription services, this means knowing that you have X amount of customers spending Y
amount every month, leading to a predictable income stream. The number will shift as people
sign up and cancel, but let’s say you have between 100,000 and 110,000 subscribers in your
first quarter. As long as you maintain 100,000 users, that’s 100,000 user’s worth of reliable
revenue.
These numbers are useful for several reasons. Mainly, it helps you keep track of how you’re
doing. But it’s also an important number to be able to share with stakeholders…and
shareholders! There will be some people who are invested in your product who only understand
the big numbers. They want a quick overview, and MRR/ARR are a great way to give them just
that.

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 7. Cloud Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) describes the basics of cloud
computing this way:

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to
a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal
management effort or service provider interaction.

How cloud computing works

Cloud computing differs from traditional IT hosting services in that the consumer (whether that’s
a business, organization, or individual user) generally doesn’t own the infrastructure needed to
support the programs or applications they use.

Instead, those elements are owned and operated by a third party, and the end-user pays only
for the services they use. In other words, cloud computing is an on-demand, utility-based model
of computing.

Characteristics of cloud computing

On-demand self-service
Users can access computing services via the cloud when they need to without interaction from
the service provider. The computing services should be fully on-demand so that users have
control and agility to meet their evolving needs.

Broad network access

Cloud computing services are widely available via the network through users’ preferred tools
(e.g., laptops, desktops, smartphones, etc.).

Resource pooling
One of the most attractive elements of cloud computing is the pooling of resources to deliver
computing services at scale. Resources, such as storage, memory, processing, and network
bandwidth, are pooled and assigned to multiple consumers based on demand.

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Rapid elasticity
Successful resource allocation requires elasticity. Resources must be assigned accurately and
quickly with the ability to absorb significant increases and decreases in demand without service
interruption or quality degradation.

Measured service
Following the utility model, cloud computing services are measured and metered. This
measurement allows the service provider (and consumer) to track usage and gauge costs
according to their demand on resources.
Cloud solutions come in three primary service models: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),
Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

IaaS
IaaS gives users access to storage, networking, servers, and other computing resources via the
cloud. While the user is still responsible for managing their applications, data, middleware, etc.,
IaaS provides automated and scalable environments that provide a high degree of control and
flexibility for the user.
For example, many businesses use IaaS to support workload spikes during busy seasons (like
holidays).

Popular IaaS providers include:

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Microsoft Azure
Google Compute Engine (GCE), the IaaS component of Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

PaaS
This service layer is primarily geared towards developers and operations professionals. Service
providers rent out cloud-based platforms for users to develop and deliver applications. In other
words, PaaS provides a framework that makes it easier and more efficient to build, customize,
and deploy applications.

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SaaS
Cloud application services are the most well-known of the cloud service models. The software is
hosted, packaged, and delivered by a third party through the Internet (typically on a
browser-based interface). By delivering the software application over the Internet, enterprises
can offload the costs of management and maintenance to the vendor(s).

Popular SaaS options include email and customer relationship management software.

Types of cloud computing

There are three main cloud service options: private, public, and hybrid clouds. Each has its own
advantages and disadvantages and which one you (or your business) choose will depend on
your data as well as the level of security and management you need.

Public
A public cloud is probably the most commonly understood cloud computing option. This is
where all the services and supporting infrastructure are managed off-site over the Internet and
shared across multiple users (or tenants).

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A good example of a public cloud at the individual consumer level is a streaming service like
Netflix or Hulu. Users subscribe to the service through an individual account but access the
same services across the platform through the Internet.
The advantage of using a public cloud is the increased efficiency and subsequent
cost-effectiveness from shared resources. Public clouds are typically cheaper than private and
hybrid cloud solutions (as well as traditional on-premise computing) because they rely on
economies of scale. Users don’t have to pay for services they aren’t using and don’t have to
worry about managing and maintaining the physical infrastructure.

Private
A private cloud provides IT services through the Internet or a private network to select users,
rather than to the general public. Instead of having multiple tenants, like a public cloud does, a
private cloud typically has only one tenant. All the data is protected behind a firewall. This is a
popular choice for many businesses who want the agility of the cloud with greater customization
and security.
Private clouds can reside on-site or off-site. The distinguishing feature is the single, private
tenant who maintains greater control over the IT services. Private clouds are popular choices for
organizations who have high priorities on security and compliance.

Hybrid
A hybrid cloud environment combines both private and public cloud elements to varying
degrees. Despite operating independently, the clouds in a hybrid environment communicate
over an encrypted connection and allow for the portability of data and applications.
This is an increasingly popular cloud solution because it allows organizations greater flexibility
to meet their IT needs.

Benefits of using the cloud for your business

There are many potential advantages to adopting cloud-based solutions for your business.
Depending on your business and data needs, migrating to a cloud environment can result in the
following benefits:

Cost savings
Although the initial price tag for migrating to the cloud can give some businesses sticker shock,
there are attractive opportunities for ROI and cost savings. Operating on the cloud typically
means adopting a pay-as-you-go model, which means you no longer have to pay for IT you’re
not using (whether that’s storage, bandwidth, etc.).

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Plus, cloud solutions are particularly affordable for smaller businesses who don’t have the
capital to build out and manage their own IT infrastructures. Greater efficiencies and economies
of scale mean more money in your pocket in the long run.

Reliability
A managed cloud platform is generally much more reliable than an in-house IT infrastructure,
with fewer instances of downtime or service interruptions. Most providers offer 24/7 support and
over 99.9% availability.

With backups for their backups, you can rest assured your data and applications will be
available whenever you need them.

Mobility
The cloud brings a level of portability unheard of with traditional IT delivery. By managing your
data and software on the cloud, employees can access necessary information and
communicate with each other whenever and wherever they want from their laptop, smartphone,
or other Internet-connected devices.
Cloud-based solutions open up opportunities for more remote work and higher productivity and
efficiency as everyone is assured access to the same updated information at the touch of a
button.

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 8. Agile Project Management
Agile project management is an iterative approach to managing software development
projects that focuses on continuous releases and incorporating customer feedback with
every iteration. Software teams that embrace agile project management methodologies
increase their development speed, expand collaboration, and foster the ability to better
respond to market trends.

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 9. Waterfall model
The waterfall project management approach entails a clearly defined sequence of execution
with project phases that do not advance until a phase receives final approval. Once a phase is
completed, it can be difficult and costly to revisit a previous stage. Agile teams may follow a
similar sequence yet do so in smaller increments with regular feedback loops.

The waterfall project management approach follows a linear, sequential formula. It works well
for work that has predictable, recurring processes, yet it can leave development teams
flat-footed and unable to adjust faster than a competitor.

A single missed deadline or scope change during a waterfall project can cause outsized impacts
on subsequent releases. Additionally, when a team is fully focused on the next phase of work,
resolving technical debt or fixing bugs can be painful if the team is fully allocated to new feature
work and always pressing forward to the next stage.

Below is an illustration of a standard waterfall project with rigidly segmented blocks of time. This
creates a “use it or lose it” mentality that encourages developers, product owners, and
stakeholders to request as much time as possible in each time window, since there may be no
opportunity to iterate in the future. Typically teams using waterfall try to control scope creep
through “change control”, where everyone agrees the original contract is not changed.

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The waterfall model can exacerbate some of the known challenges of building products:

Blockers and dependency management: Traditional project management styles often create
"critical paths", where the project can't move forward until a blocking issue is resolved.
Difficulty getting user feedback and product validation: To add insult to injury, the end customer
can't interact with the product until it's fully complete. Thus, important issues in the product
design and code go undiscovered until release.
The advantages of waterfall

● Requires less coordination due to clearly defined phases sequential processes

● A clear project phase helps to clearly define dependencies of work.
● The cost of the project can be estimated after the requirements are defined
● Better focus on documentation of designs and requirements
● The design phase is more methodical and structured before any software is written

The disadvantages of waterfall

● Harder to break up and share work because of stricter phase sequences teams are more
specialized
● Risk of time waste due to delays and setbacks during phase transitions
● Additional hiring requirements to fulfill specialized phase teams whereas agile
encourages more cross-functional team composition.
● Extra communication overhead during handoff between phase transitions
● Product ownership and engagement may not be as strong when compared to agile since
the focus is brought to the current phase.

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 10. Agile v/s Waterfall
Agile was first adopted by software teams, who moved from the traditional, sequential waterfall
approach to a method that garnered consistent feedback and adjustment throughout the
development lifecycle.

Agile project management takes an iterative approach to development by creating several

incremental steps with regular feedback intervals. This promotes adaptability since a team can
adjust throughout the product development process, rather than being confined to a linear path.
It also allows for regular, high-impact releases that enable teams to deliver a series of wins over
time.

Iterative releases unlock multiple opportunities for a team to:

● Adapt to changing circumstances from newly discovered requirements to a blocked

piece of work.
● Gather feedback from stakeholders during the process and iterate responsively without
the stress of a final delivery deadline.
● Build relationships and connections across roles that make it easier for people to
connect and communicate effectively.
● Agile allows teams to be more resilient to changes that inevitably occur during a project.

References:
● https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/cloud-computing-basics#:~:text=Cloud%20computing%
20is%20a%20model,effort%20or%20service%20provider%20interaction.
● https://davidolszewski.com/top-16-frameworks-every-product-manager-wants-to-know
● https://www.atlassian.com/
● https://www.thestreet.com/markets/commodities/product-life-cycle-14882534
● https://theproductmanager.com/tools/product-management-tools/
● https://productschool.com/blog/data-analytics/metrics-product-managers-measure/

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GUESSTIMATES

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 Guesstimate -1
Interviewer: Estimate the number of queries answered by Google every second.

Candidate: Okay, so as far as I understand I need to find out Google’s QPS or Queries per
second. Please let me take a few seconds to go ahead and note down the approach that I
would be following. Firstly, I have a few questions to get clarified.

Interviewer: Sure, please proceed.

Candidate: So, when you say Google queries, are we talking about queries across all devices
such as mobile phone, web etc?

Interviewer: Yes, it is across all platforms available.

Candidate: Okay, got it. So, Google comprises several features such as Google search engine,
Google Maps, Gmail, GCP, G-Suite applications etc. Is there a particular business vertical that
you would want me to focus on? Also, should I be considering the global population or do you
have a specific geographic location in mind?

Interviewer: Please focus specifically on Google search which is our core business and
proceed with the global population.

Candidate: As far as I know the query per second varies from hour to hour. So, would it be safe
to assume that you are asking for an average on any given day?

Interviewer: That’s a good assumption. Go ahead.

Candidate: So, let me go ahead and give you an outline of my approach. I am going to estimate
the total number of users and multiply that number by the average number of searches per user
per second. My calculation would look like

QPS = (Number of Internet users using Google search x Number of search queries per day) /
Total seconds in a day

Interviewer: That sounds right.

Candidate: Alright, so now I would be breaking down the problem statement to arrive at certain
numbers. First of all, the total number of Internet users worldwide to the best of my knowledge is
around 5 billion. Considering Google is the most widely used search engine across the globe, I
believe they enjoy a market share of 70%+, say 75%.

55
Interviewer: Sounds good to me.

Candidate: Thank you. Now, taking my personal case, I am a heavy internet user and I depend
on Google at least 10 times a day to search for something. However, I would like to assume that
I lie within the top 10% of the Google users worldwide. Hence, I would want to go for an even
distribution of this sort, that is, the top 10% go for 10 queries a day. The next 10% go for 9
queries a day and so on. I will then use this to calculate the average search queries per day per
person. Is that a justified assumption?

Interviewer: Perfect, you may proceed.

Candidate: Coming to the math of this particular calculation, the total internet users is 5 billion,
out of which assuming that China and Russia have certain restrictions on Google. China has
about 1.3 billion population and Russia has slightly less. Hence, I am going to assume that the
overall total population of China and Russia combined is 1.5 billion. The overall world population
is approximately 7.5 billion and we have assumed that 5 billion of them have access to the
Internet. That comes to around two-third of the global population. In China, this percentage
would be higher as they have an Internet penetration which is higher than the third world
countries. So I am going to assume that 80% of the population in China have internet access.
Hence total Internet users in China and Russia would be 80% of 1.5 billion = 1.2 billion. Hence
the total internet users outside of China and Russia = 5 - 1.2 = 3.8 billion people.

Now, we have assumed that Google has 75% market share. Therefore, the total number of
Google users worldwide would be 3.8 x 75% = 2.85 billion which I would be approximating to
2.8 billion. Also, based on our previous assumption, every search queries per user per day
would be 10 queries for the top 10%, 9 queries for the next 10% and so on. This comes out to
be 5.5 queries per user per day. Hence, total number of search queries = 5.5 x 2.8 = 15.4 billion
which I would be approximating to 15 billion queries per day.

Number of queries per second would be 15 billion/(24 x 3600) sec = 0.16 million queries per
second.

Interviewer: Alright, would you want to do a sanity check in this case?

Candidate: ( rechecks the whole calculation step by step ) Yes, this number sounds about right.
I am aware that there could be a lot of variations and possibilities that exist. But as an
approximate ballpark figure, this number seems fine to me.

Interviewer: That is a good approximation. Thank you.

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 Guesstimate -2
Interviewer: Hi, hope you are doing good. The question that I have for you today is to estimate
the total number of iPhones sold in the last year in India.

Candidate: Sure, so because I am not aware of certain constraints like total number of factories
that produce, the production capacity of each factory and such. Hence I would like to go ahead
with the top-down approach and try to come up with an estimate for the same.

Interviewer: Yes, that sounds good to me.

Candidate: Alright, so to begin with the population of India. I know that the population of India is
close to 1.35 billion people. But for an easier calculation, I am going to assume that it is 1.2
billion. I would like to break down this population into urban and rural. Would that be fine with
you?

Interviewer: Yes, you can use demographics to split the population.

Candidate: Thank you, I would like to take a 30-70 split between the urban and rural
population. My assumption here is that people in rural areas would not be into buying iPhones
since they would not have the affordability to buy such an expensive device. I understand that
there could be people here and there in this segment also who would be purchasing an iphone.
But I am willing to ignore this whole part.

Interviewer: Yes, that is fair. How would you progress after this?

Candidate: Yeah, so 30% of 1.2 billion gives me 400 million and even within this 40 million
people who are living in urban areas, I know that there are people categorized as high class,
upper middle class, lower middle class and below poverty line. I wish to take a 20-30-30-20
split. My next assumption here is that people who are below the poverty line and lower middle
class would not be purchasing an iphone again because they would not be able to afford it.
Iphones are usually luxury products. Hence, I would remove them from my calculation. So, the
20% and 30% who are in the upper and upper middle class respectively add up to 50% of 400
million which is 200 million.

Interviewer: That sounds right. In what other way would you want to split this 200 million?

Candidate: Now this 200 million would consiste of the younger population or kids who probably
may not even be using a phone. Hence, I would be taking this part out assuming from my

57
experience that people aged between 0 and 15 years can be considered as kids. Is that a fair
assumption?

Interviewer: Yes, go ahead with your calculation.

Candidate: To come up with a count of people in this age group, I would like to assume that the
average life expectancy of people in India is 80 years and that every age group has an equal
distribution of people which means I am going 200 million by 80 giving me 2.5 million per age
group. I then multiply this 2.5 with 15 which gives me 37.5 million people. For easier calculation,
I will round this up to 40 million. Subtracting this 40 million from the 200 million gives me 160
million people in the age group of 16-80 years. Now this 160 million is the number of people
who use phones today and who can afford to buy iPhones.

Now, I know that everybody who can afford an iPhone doesn't really go for an iPhone. Android
users are a majority in India. Hence, drawing insights from my personal experience, I am going
to assume that 1 out of every 10 owns an iPhone. 160 million divided by 10 gives me 16 million
people who own iphones at this point in time.

Interviewer: That's a very good observation. Please move to the latter part of the problem
statement, I need a number for the last one year.

Candidate: Sure, now an iPhone could be purchased this year, in the last one year, two years
or earlier than that. To get the number of iPhones that were sold in the last one year, I would like
to divide the total number of iPhones that are there today by the average lifespan of an iPhone
which I assume is 4 years. Therefore, 16 million by 4 gives me 4 million iPhones sold in the last
one year in India.

Interviewer: Would you want to perform a sanity check to guess whether your number is close
to the final number?

Candidate: (rechecks the whole calculation) Yes, I feel my number is approximately correct.

Interviewer: That would be it, thank you.

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 Guesstimate -3
Interviewer: Hi.Let’s get started with your case. I would like you to estimate the number of
burgers sold in a typical Burger King’s outlet in a day

Candidate: Alright. Just to get the question right, I am supposed to find the units of burgers sold
at a Burger King joint. Can I assume it to be any outlet, say for example in Indore?

Interviewer: Sure, let's take the one in the Treasure Island mall.

Candidate: Also, are we taking into account both dine-in orders and takeaways?

Interviewer: Yes, I would want you to consider both.

Candidate: Alright, fair enough. Give me a few minutes to frame out my overall approach. First,
I would like to take the dine-in orders and take up the take-away orders using a different
approach.

So, it's basically the (Number of seats in the restaurant) x (% Seat occupancy) x (Number of
burgers ordered per person)

Typically, a customer spends about 20 minutes in the restaurant. Hence, the above calculation
would give the number of burgers ordered for this cycle of 20 minutes. With this assumption of
20 minutes per customer, in an hour we would see about 3 customers.

To get the number of burgers sold in a day, I would require the number of hours the store
operates and then multiply it with the above formula.

Interviewer: Alright, that sounds great. But isn't there something else as well that you would
have to take into account?

Candidate: Yes, I understand that the % occupancy would differ for each working hour and that
has to be accounted for. During the peak hours, say 10am to 2pm and then 6pm to 10pm the
occupancy would be 100% whereas from 2pm to 6pm only 50% of the seats would be occupied.
I would also like to further assume that any particular outlet would have about 50 seats. Is that
assumption fair?

Interviewer:Yes, please go ahead

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Candidate: Proceeding with the calculation.Number of seats is 50 and taking the 100%
occupancy case for now. I would like to take a weighted approach to calculate the number of
burgers ordered per person. The number of burgers usually ordered is 1 per person. But the
burgers in India are smaller in size and a person might order 2 burgers. I will go with 80%
ordering 1 burger and the rest ordering 2 burgers. Now that gives me 1.2 burgers per person.

The number now is 50 x 100% x 1.2 x 3 x 8(Number of hours) = 1440 burgers in an day

Similarly, for the 2pm to 6pm slot, the seat occupancy is 50% and hence 360 burgers would be
sold in that particular slot per day. Sum total of these numbers gives me 1800 burgers that
would be sold in a day in the dine-in section.

Interviewer: Fair, we could now move on to the take-away section.

Candidate: Sure, can I take the occupancy rate the same as above for the take-away category
as well?

Interviewer: Yes, sounds good.

Candidate: Thanks. Now, in this case in the peak hours, there is a continuous inflow of
customer orders being placed. So, even if we have a dedicated counter, the number of orders
served would be dependent on the minimum time taken to finish one customer cycle. Whereas,
in the non peak hours, the minimum time required to serve an order won't really matter as the
customer might place an order maybe once in every 10-15 minutes.

Calculating the numbers for the peak,

Time taken to complete 1 order = Time for cooking (negligible) + Time for assembly (10-30
seconds) + Billing time (about 1 min/customer) + Waiting time (1 min/customer)

Interviewer: Why are we assuming the cooking time to be 0?

Candidate: I have taken it that way because most of the ingredients for a burger are precooked
and need to be just assembled.

Interviewer: Sure

Candidate: So, the total time comes out to 2.5 minutes which I would be approximating to 3
mins/order. So, in an hour, 20 orders can be processed and served. Also, I am taking the order
size for take away as more than 1 burger as generally when people place orders, they prefer to
order more. I would like to assume here that 50% of the order size would be 1 , about 30% and

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20% are 2 and 3 burgers each. Taking a weighted average gives me 2 hours per order. So, in
the peak 8 hours, the number of burgers ordered would be 320 burgers.

For the non peak hours, I would like to take 1 burger out every 15 minutes and this is from my
personal experience. This means 4 burgers going out every hour.

Interviewer: I feel 4 burgers every hour is an underestimation.

Candidate: Let's round it off to 10 burgers per hour in that case. Hence 40 burgers for an entire
day. The total of which gives 360 burgers per day for the take away section. The grand total
from both the modes would come out to be 1800 + 360 = 2160 burgers per day.

To do a quick sanity check, I would like to divide this number by the total number of operating
hours which is 12. 2160/12 = 160 burgers an hour, which is basically 3 burgers a minute. This
seems like a slight overestimation to me but the order of magnitude looks fine to me. Hence, the
number would be somewhere close to 1500 as my final answer.

Interviewer: Sure, I like your approach. We can conclude the case.

61
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

62
 Interview -1

Interviewer: How would you design a VR product for hospitals?

Candidate: I don’t know much about VR technology, except that it is a visual technology that
immerses the user into a virtual world, am I right?

Interviewer: Yes, that is correct. There are currently several uses for VR technology, such as
diagnosis of brain related injuries such as concussions, Alzheimer’s among others, psychiatric
treatment, and it is used for entertainment. We are interested in developing a VR product for the
case of psychiatric treatment, such as for Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With VR a
person can be taken back to a traumatic event to resurface trauma that can be treated.

Candidate: Okay, so, my understanding is that you would like to design a VR product that a
psychiatrist could use in a hospital setting, and that this product will help resurface trauma that
will be triggered via VR scenes.

Interviewer: Yes.

Candidate: Are there any specific requirements or constraints?

Interviewer:Well, it has to be something the patients can put on and feel comfortable wearing
while seated or lying down. And of course, cost is an issue.

Candidate: Okay, please give me a minute to think about this.

Candidate: Okay, I would like to start first by discussing who the possible users of this product
will be, then possible use case scenarios, a few solutions and wrap up with my
recommendation.

Candidate: Let’s talk about the users. Victims of trauma can be of any age, children or adults.
They can be victims of physical or verbal abuse, or have experienced trauma in their line of
work like in the case of military or police personnel. So, I see several use cases that arise:

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 ● A child that experienced a traumatic event but cannot recollect it
● Military person that suffered war trauma
● Police that suffered trauma during a violent event
● A civilian that experienced a horrific scene

Candidate: In all of these cases, I can see the need for different types of tasks that the product
should provide, such as:

● Display scenes similar to the traumatic event. Selection of the scenes should be
controlled by the doctor.
● Ability to plan the sequence of different scenes.
● Playback should be easily controlled by the patient and doctor.
● The ability for the doctor to mark and associate comments to specific scenes.
● The ability to transcribe these comments to text for the doctor to study later.
● The ability to search for these marks/comments.
● Maybe the ability to map emotional reactions to different areas of the brain for later
analysis.
● The VR headset should be adjustable to children and adult head sizes, or have two
different sizes

Candidate: Of all the users, I would focus on military personnel because government funding is
likely to be available, and there is already an existing large number of war veterans in need.

Candidate: I think most of the cases I mentioned can be easily added to a VR headset, except
for the mapping of emotions to brain areas, since that would require sophisticated sensors. I
think that the most pressing need for the psychiatrist is to resurface the trauma or traumatic
event they want to treat as opposed to researching deeper what parts of the brain are affected.
Therefore, I would recommend focusing on all the cases I mentioned except for the brain
mapping feature.

Candidate: Here is a list of solutions:

● A pair of VR headsets, one for the patient and one for the doctor that are synchronized
when they play, so that the doctor can relate to what the patient is experiencing to
understand his condition better.
● The VR headset should be wireless enabled and light so it is easy to wear and move
around.

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 ● A handheld wireless remote control for the patient and doctor, so that the doctor can
control playback, and the patient could also control it.
● Software for the doctor to create video sequences to present to the patient. A doctor
could select videos made by experts that have been curated and associated with typical
traumas.
● The ability to load or stream the VR scenes to the headset.
● A digital pad, that is overlaid on the video so the doctor can write annotations on the
scenes.
● A transcription of the annotations to text for the doctor.

Candidate: For an MVP, I would prioritize the ability to create the video sequences, the remote
control feature, and the use of streaming instead of loading into the VR headset. I would leave
the annotation and pad for later, because it seems to me that we need to test first if the doctors
find this way of treatment useful before adding more functionality. Adding more functionality
would only add value if the doctors find the VR display of scenes useful.

Candidate: The risk of delaying the annotation feature is that if doctors found the device really
useful, they may feel frustrated by not having the ability to make annotations.

Interviewer: That sounds good. Please wrap up.

Candidate: So, to wrap up:

● I recommend making two VR headsets: one for the patient and one for the doctor that
are synchronized. And add the remote control functions, video streaming, and software
for content creation.
● This solution would allow a doctor to resurface trauma that otherwise would be difficult to
do since patients repress traumatic events unless triggered by reliving the experience.
● I chose to do an MVP without annotation capabilities because I find these features of
secondary value

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 Interview -2

Interviewer: How would you implement a feature that uses location in Twitter?

Candidate: What is the goal of the feature?

Interviewer: The goal is to increase the frequency of use and engagement of Twitter users. We
think this will increase the attractiveness of the platform to marketers/advertisers.
Candidate: Ok. Would you like me to provide ideas for desktop and mobile?

Interviewer: Let’s narrow it down to the mobile app.

Candidate: Ok. Could I take a few minutes to think about possible solutions?

Interviewer: Please do.

Candidate: I would like to start off by talking about the different types of Twitter users and why
they use Twitter. This will help me identify who the most valuable users are and prioritize their
needs. Then, I will brainstorm how location can be used to enhance the user’s experience,
provide some solutions, and wrap up with recommendations.
Interviewer: Sounds good.
Candidate:
User types
In general, Twitter users use the platform to read news that is of particular interest to them. For
example:
● News junkies
● Celebrity followers
● Technology news followers
● Followers of influencers or thought leaders
● Followers of entertainment news like latest Movies, Hollywood gossip
● Friends followers

I think the heaviest users from these groups are:

Followers of entertainment news — I think most people go to Twitter to be entertained, such as

reading about the latest Hollywood news or celebrity gossip.

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 ● News junkies — people are getting their news from social networks like Twitter more and
more rather than newspapers.
● Celebrity followers — many millennials follow celebrities.
● Technology news junkies — mostly happening in states with a large concentration of
technology companies.
● Influencer followers — people following thought leaders in business and technology
mostly.
● Friends followers

Interviewer: We would not be wanting to look into all these categories. You can go ahead and
prioritize a few.

Candidate: I would prioritize the needs of the top three users, since they are the heaviest users.

Use Cases
Now, I would like to analyze how these users use Twitter, then think how location can be used to
enhance their experience.

● Entertainment followers — these users are probably doing searches about movies or tv
shows, actors or seasonal events like the Oscars.
● News junkies — these users already follow specific news sources like the New York
Times, BBC for international news or the San Francisco Chronicle for local news for
example; and they are also doing searches for tweets about recent international/national
events people are talking about.
● Celebrity followers — these users are reading what their favorite celebrities are tweeting
about.
Brainstorm Solutions
Now, I am going to brainstorm some possible new features that use location to increase
engagement and frequency of use of these users.

Three ideas are:

● Extend the Popular Near You feature to include filters that allow users to filter
news/events by a topic of interest.
● Create a new Local tab that lets users find tweets about local news or events that can be
filtered by a topic of interest.
● Add a Marketplace tab similar to what Facebook has that enables users to find things or
services for sale near them.

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Of the three ideas, I would pick the one that is more in line with the goals of the users, engages
them more and is easier to implement. Extending the Popular Near You feature and creating a
new Local tab feature are more aligned with the goals of the top Twitter users, which is to be
entertained and read about news and interesting events. The Marketplace tab would only
interest people that are in the market to buy or sell something local, which I think is less aligned
with the goals of these users. Between the Popular Near You feature and the new Local tab
feature I am proposing, I think the new Local tab would be the best option. A Local tab would be
used more frequently because it would be visible on the app tab bar as opposed to buried under
the Connect feature as the Popular Near You label. And, it would be easy to implement because
it is similar to a regular feed except filtered by location and topics.

Interviewer: Okay, sounds good. So how would you implement it?

Candidate: Okay, before talking about implementation, I would like to start by describing how I
think location information can be used to enhance the top users’ experience.

For Entertainment followers, location can be used to enable them to find local events happening
that day with the option of filtering by different types of events, such as movies, concerts, bar
events, and coffee house events. It could also enable them to buy event tickets.
For News followers, location can be used to enable them to filter local news, or automatically
show tweets about local news related to tweets the user has retweeted or liked.
For Celebrity followers, location could be used to enable them to find which celebrities are
performing in town that day and enable them to buy event tickets.
Let’s talk about implementation now. The Local tab would present a new screen after the user
taps it, and like with the Moments tab, the categories of Entertainment, News, and Celebrity can
be presented on a horizontal bar at the top of the screen. The user can select any of these three
topics to display related tweets that are happening within the city the user lives. In the case of
Entertainment, when the user selects this topic, the sub-filters such as movies, theater, coffee
bars, and concerts, would replace the contents of the horizontal bar. A back button would need
to be displayed, perhaps as the first button on the list of sub-filters to enable the user to return to
the main topics.

Since there would be space for additional main topics on the top horizontal bar, the Technology
News, Influencers and Friends topics could be included as additional main topics.

Interviewer: Do you see any drawbacks as such?

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Candidate: One drawback I see with some categories like Celebrities, is that there may not be
too many tweets to show at the local level, since Celebrities tend to hang out only in very
cosmopolitan/international cities. A way to deal with this problem is to display this topic only in
cosmopolitan cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and others.

In terms of monetization, I think that the Entertainment events topic would attract many of the
local businesses to promote or advertise within this Local feature. People tapping on the Local
tab would already be interested in events in their local sphere and more likely to buy tickets for
local events. Twitter could charge these businesses a percentage of the ticket prices bought
through its Local feature to generate revenue.

In summary, I brainstormed three possible solutions that use tweet locations to enhance the
experience of top heavy users of Twitter: an extension to the current Popular Near You feature,
a Local tab, and a Marketplace tab. I recommend the implementation of the Local tab because
its function would be more aligned with the main goals of the most frequent users and would
perform better than the current Popular Near You feature, which is not visible. An additional
upside of the Local tab feature, besides increasing frequency of use and engagement, is that it
can be monetized through a profit margin sharing arrangement with event organizers when
users buy tickets.

Interviewer: Thank you. We are done with the case.

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 Interview -3
Interviewer: How would you design a bookshelf for children?

Candidate: Could you tell me what the desired objective is for the design?

Interviewer: We would like to design a bookshelf that stands out for its innovation, not just the
usual usage of placing books or things on it.

Candidate: And where would the bookshelf be used? The obvious place is in family households
but I can also see schools, children’s hospitals or any institution that deals with children using
bookshelves too.

Interviewer: Let’s say it is for family households.

Candidate: Okay. And what is the age or age range of the children we are designing the
bookshelf for?

Interviewer: Between the ages of 5 and 10.

Candidate: Okay. The way I will go about answering this question is to first understand who the
user or users are and what activities they would like to do relative to bookshelves. There may be
some activities that no bookshelf serves today which could lead to innovative designs. After
selecting some use cases, I will describe solutions and how to build them. Then I will wrap up
with my final recommendation.

Interviewer: Sounds good, please continue.

Candidate:

Identifying Users
Parents are the most likely buyers of bookshelves for their children. Since the goal is to design
an innovative bookshelf, I think the types of families buying such a bookshelf would be families

70
with high disposable incomes. High income families are likely to favor design over utility.
Children will also use the bookshelf, so we will need to keep their behavior and needs in mind.

Listing Use Cases

Now I would like to think about different use cases, that is activities parents and children like to
do that are related to a bookshelf. This will help spark new ideas for creating innovative designs
for bookshelves. Could I take a minute to write down some preliminary ideas about possible use
cases?

Interviewer: Sure.

Candidate: Okay, I can think of the following use cases involving a bookshelf:

● Parents that borrow books from their local library may need reminders to return them
● Parents may need help with keeping track of which books they’ve already bought to not
mistakenly buy them again
● Since children grow up quickly, a height adjustable bookshelf would be useful
● A bookshelf could be used as a desk if it had a top
● Children like to use furniture to make forts, maybe the bookshelf could be transformed
into one
● Parents may like to get recommendations on which book to read their children next
● The bookshelf could read a story to the children before they go to bed instead of the
parent
● Children love songs, so maybe the bookshelf could play a song that fits the story
● The bookshelf could become a drum by creating a cover for the bookshelf and allowing
different parts to produce different pitches
● It is always a pain to dust bookshelves, so perhaps the bookshelf could be self-dusting
● Embed a display into a bookshelf to provide a summary and information about each
book on the shelf
● People forget to put books back on a bookshelf, so maybe the bookshelf could weep as
though it misses the books and ask for the books to be put back; a “weeping bookshelf”
● Children could use a long single shelf of a bookshelf for fun as a ‘seesaw’

Prioritizing Use Cases

There are a lot of use cases we could design for but we need to prioritize those that meet the
innovation design goal and provide a benefit to the customer. To make this selection, I would
prioritize a use case based on whether a solution could be highly original; whether it targets
children; whether it is easy to build; and whether it is a frequent use case.

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Of all the use cases, I think the one that would spark an original design is the “Seesaw”
bookshelf, which children could use for shelving books and for fun. It is not complex to make,
and I think that children would use it often, because having a seesaw is like having a playground
available 24x7.

The second best use case is the “Drum bookshelf.” It is an innovative concept and children
would play with it. The concept is not difficult to build but I think children would try it a few times
and then get bored with it.

My third favorite use case would be the “Weeping bookshelf.” A smart bookshelf that reminds
people to put books back would be innovative and useful because it is a frequent scenario. But
it is not children oriented and would be very complex to make because it would require
technology to identify which books are not on the shelf, which is hard to do. The best technology
today is radio-frequency identification (RFID), but even with this technology it would be hard to
read RFID tags from books that are so close together, and it would be a logistical headache to
add tags to the books.

Therefore, I would choose the Seesaw bookshelf use case as the best one to target. What do
you think?

Interviewer: It makes sense, so how would you implement a solution for it?

Candidate:

Listing Solutions
To design a bookshelf that also functions as a seesaw, I would consider the following:

● The bookshelf would consist of one long horizontal shelf placed on top of a standing pole
that would serve as a middle hinge for the shelf.
● The material of the shelf would need to be strong enough to hold the books and support
the weight of a child, so probably thick wood or metal.
● On each side of the top part of the shelf, there should be handles for children to hold on
to.
● Since the seesaw goes up and down, I would split the shelf into two sides: right and left,
with a plate in the middle that stops books from going from one end to the other. This is

72
 to protect the books from sliding from one end to the other and to prevent too much
noise.
● If the weight of the books on one end is equivalent to the child on the other end, than it
would be easy for the child to go up and down. If there is a disparity in weight, a scale
could be integrated to calculate how much or less additional weight there needs to be on
the other side. For example, if the scale calculates that a child needs extra weight at the
opposite end, then the child could add more books to that end and the scale would make
a sound when the weight is correct.
● A more sophisticated solution could include an electronic system that would
automatically sense the weight on both sides and control the speed going up and down
according to how fast the child wants to go.
Recommendation
I can see three versions of the solution: the basic version with no scale, the intermediate version
with the scale, and the advanced version with the electric system. And offer versions with
various colors and patterns that appeal to children.

Interviewer: Which product would you want to launch first and what would be the plan of
action?
Candidate: I would first launch the product with the basic seesaw bookshelf, to see if the idea
appeals to customers. If that is successful, then I would test the appeal of the intermediate and
advanced versions by testing the products with the customers that liked the basic version.

Interviewer: Could you summarize your solution?

Candidate: Sure. In summary, I identified parents with high disposable incomes as the likeliest
buyers of a new innovative bookshelf. I listed several use cases, and chose the seesaw
bookshelf as the best option given that it would call for an innovative design, appeals to
children, and was not too complex to make. I proposed three solutions: one basic, one
intermediate and one advanced; and recommended starting with the basic version to test the
appeal of the idea first. As an only child, I would have loved a bookshelf like this, because I had
no siblings to play with, so I am excited about this design.

Interviewer: Thank you.

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 Interview -4

Interviewer: What new feature would you design for the Amazon Echo?

Candidate: What is the goal that the business wants to achieve?

Interviewer: We want to increase sales of the Amazon Echo and the orders of products and
services from Amazon.

Candidate: Just to be clear, the new features are just for the Amazon Echo and not for other
voice-controlled assistant devices like the Amazon Dot, Amazon Show nor Amazon Look?

Interviewer: Yes, the feature is only for the Amazon Echo.

Candidate: Okay, I would like to start by talking about the types of users that are likely to buy
voice-controlled assistant devices like the Amazon Echo, who they are and what things they
may want to do that the current Amazon Echo product does not support. After brainstorming on
some use cases related to voice-controlled assistants, I will select the ones that I think would
help achieve the goals if backed by a new feature.

Candidate: The main types of users of the Amazon Echo are:

● Families that are technology savvy and have mid to high disposable incomes to buy
non-essential electronic devices. Most of these families are also likely to be Amazon
Prime members lured by some of the free services for Prime members that come with
the Echo. For example, Prime Music is free for members.
● Elderly parents of potential buyers of these devices are potential users. People with
elderly parents may buy these devices to aid elderly parents with some tasks.
● Single individuals that are also tech savvy, with high disposable incomes, and are
intrigued by the novelty of these devices.
● Families and single individuals are buyers and users of these devices while elderly
parents are most likely just users.

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Okay, I would like to take a minute to brainstorm possible use cases that have not been
addressed by Amazon Echo for these three users yet.

Interviewer: Sure.

Candidate: Okay, let’s start with families.

Families:
● Families today are too busy and do not have time to plan their meals, such as deciding
what to cook, which ingredients to buy, and how to cook the meal. Assistance in
choosing a recipe, buying ingredients, and step-by-step instructions on how to cook
would save them time. A recurring scenario to address is opening the fridge and wanting
to use up miscellaneous food items, but not knowing what kind of meal to make with
them.
● Getting help finding a service person to help with repairs or house chores without having
to spend much time looking for a trustworthy person
● Parents whose children are learning a second language and want a language coach for
their kids to help with pronunciation practice.

Elderly:
● Elderly people who take more than one medication may need help remembering which
medication to take, at what times, and in which order to take them
● Families with members that have dementia, such as Alzheimer’s. Moments of short-term
memory loss can cause disorientation and high stress. People with dementia may have
trouble remembering where a family member is or when they will be home. During these
moments, a typical situation could look like this: a daughter is grocery shopping, while
the daughter is away, her mother with Alzheimer’s has forgotten that her daughter went
to the store. By having an assistant to remind the mother where the daughter is could
help alleviate stress.

Single individual:
● Public speaking coaching is something many professionals are interested
● Having a personal trainer for exercising.
● Learning how to play an instrument. Playing by ear requires listening to a passage in a
song and trying to replicate it with your instrument again and again. Using your voice to
command different passages to practice would be useful so that you can keep your
hands on the instrument.

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Of all these use cases, I would prioritize the ones that are more likely to help achieve the goals
stated earlier: to increase purchases of the Echo and increase purchases of products and
services from other Amazon businesses. The use cases that would be aligned with these goals
would be those that are important to the user and frequent enough for the user to want to buy
the Amazon Echo. Ideally, they should also lead to the frequent purchase of products and
services from Amazon. Therefore my criteria for prioritizing use cases is whether it is an
important use case, it is a frequent one and whether it leads to purchases from Amazon.

Of these eight use cases, the cooking instructions for families, the medication reminder, and the
memory aid for elderly Alzheimer patients are scenarios that frequently occur in the lives of
those users. Now from the importance standpoint, I think assistance for elderly parents is of
higher importance than cooking. Nevertheless, cooking is an activity that can be more
conducive to purchases from Amazon, because of required ingredients and cooking
paraphernalia. The elderly use cases could lead to Echo sales, but the cooking activity could
lead to more long-term purchases of other products from Amazon. So I would prioritize the
cooking use case for development, but put the elderly use cases in the product roadmap. With
the aging population increasing, more families are in need of affordable ways to take care of
their elderly parents. I think the market for technology that aids the elderly will be growing, and
getting families to buy the Echo for their parents is the first step to entering that market.

Interviewer: We can now move on to the solutions part.

Candidate: Sure

Cooking Instructions
So now, I would like to brainstorm solutions for the cooking instructions case. As I mentioned
earlier, one use case is finding what to cook from miscellaneous food items in the fridge. One
solution could be to provide a Chef Assistant skill that a user could ask for advice. The user
could list the ingredients in the fridge and then ask Alexa, “Alexa, what can I cook with these
ingredients?” The skill could provide the top three recommendations, from which the user could
select one, and then ask Alexa to order the missing ingredients from Amazon Fresh or Prime
Now. When the user is ready to cook, the Chef Assistant skill could provide instructions on prep,
such as organizing and chopping ingredients, then give step-by-step instructions on how to cook
the actual meal. If the user misses a step, a voice-enabled search and playback controls should
be available for the user to repeat the instructions. For example, a user may say, “Alexa, start
from the moment the chicken breast is seasoned.” An alternative solution or a companion to this
solution is to display a video of the cooking instructions to the browser or mobile Alexa app. The
video playback and audio playback from Alexa should be synchronized so that the instructions
the user hears corresponds to what the user is seeing.

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Memory Aid

Now, I want to brainstorm a solution for the elderly that have short-term memory loss or
dementia, such as Alzheimer’s. In my use case example, a mother forgets that her daughter
went grocery shopping. Picture a daughter saying, “Mom, I going to the store and will be back in
one hour.” The daughter leaves. Some time goes by, and the mother calls out for her daughter,
but there is no response. The mother has forgotten that her daughter is at the store and begins
to worry. In this type of situation, the daughter’s name could be an invocation name. When the
daughter’s name is called out, Alexa wakes with the response, “Mary is at the store and will be
back by 3:00 PM. Would you like me to call her?” This solution would require the Echo skill to
learn who the family members are, their relationships, their phone numbers, and track their
locations through their smartphones. It would be useful to have voice identification so that the
individual with Alzheimer’s doesn’t need to use “Alexa” as the wake word. Alexa could identify
the person with dementia and would know what to say to this person. An Echo skill could be
developed by Amazon or a third party to provide this kind of service.

Medication Reminder

A medication management skill could be developed to remind an elderly person to take their
prescriptions. A person could ask Alexa to tell them which pills to take, how many to take, and at
what time. Before taking medication, Alexa could verify if the person has taken the prescription.
Alexa would log whether they did or not. For example, Alexa could say, “Paul, it is time for you
to take your Atenolol. Have you taken it already.” If Paul replies with a “Yes” Alexa could
respond with “Great! I will record that in your log.” If Paul replies with a “No” Alexa would remind
him to take his medication. After a few minutes, Alex would follow-up with, “Paul did you take
your Atenolol.” By reminding and logging medications, Alex could keep track of which meds to
take next.

Interviewer: Please proceed with prioritizing and finalizing on the solutions.

Candidate: Of the two solution proposals for the cooking use case, I would start with the one
without video. It is simpler to make and doesn’t require the synchronization between video and
audio. Besides, with the Echo Show now in production, it would be better to have the video
version of this skill developed for the Echo Show alone, because the implementation would be
easier, cleaner and would increase the Echo Show appeal.

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Of the two solutions to support the elderly, I would implement the one that assists short-term
memory loss or dementia, such as Alzheimer’s. Although it would be harder to implement,
because it requires the coordination of multiple technologies like real-time location tracking and
voice identification, I think the solution would have a much stronger impact. The solution would
reduce stress for the person with short-term memory loss and the people that care for them. If
implemented correctly, this solution could open the door to addressing more use cases in the
care management industry.

Interviewer: Sounds great. We can wrap this case up with a summary of the discussion so far.

Candidate: In summary, I have explored use cases that the Amazon Echo has not yet
addressed. Of the eight I proposed, I would recommend implementing the cooking instructions
use case, because it is very frequent, important to the user, and is likely to increase purchases
from Amazon. One solution I suggested provides the user with recipes for their miscellaneous
food items in the fridge, and step-by-step instructions with voice controlled playback and search
capabilities. In the product roadmap, I also recommend the implementation of the memory aid
solution for short-term memory loss. Although this solution may not lead to many commercial
purchases of Amazon products, it can open the door to a new market in care management,
which is a $15B market and growing.

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 Interview -5
Interviewer: Design a social media app for cooking enthusiasts

Candidate: Sure, Sir, should I consider specific user segments while designing?

Interviewer: What do you mean by some specific segment?

Candidate: One user segment can be chefs, another segment can be people wanting to learn
new recipes like students/working professionals who have just shifted to a new city and have
cooking facilities at home

(Segmentation gives us a better idea about the features we want to develop to target the
respective users)

Interviewer: Right. No - no specific segment; for now, make the app for everyone.

Candidate: So, considering the current scenario where many people are staying at home, we
can assume that interest in cooking has increased. Broadly we can have three user segments:

1. People who are starting to learn cooking and want some guidance for it will include students,
working professionals, etc.
2. Homemakers and Cooking enthusiasts who have been cooking daily and want to guide others
3. Professionals like cooks and chefs who want to earn some money by teaching cooking online

Candidate: Which segment should I focus on?

Interviewer: Focus on cooking enthusiasts who want to share their knowledge and guide
others.

Candidate: Okay, so, currently, cooking enthusiasts are spread over Instagram, Pinterest for
posting or browsing pics, youtube for tutorials or cooking videos, big basket or swiggy for
grocery delivery etc. With this app, the aim is to provide one platform for all the interaction and
learning.

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So, we can have the following features in the app:

(A feature must be decided based on what value does it give or add to the user)

1. Share pics/ videos

2. Tutorials
3. Cooking courses: free/premium (tie-up with cooks)
4. Hyperlocal delivery of meal baskets, groceries, cooking equipment
5. Advertise catering services
6. Hiring and job search opportunities for cooks, chefs
7. Ads placed by Gourmet and premium food brands Revenue model:

(To hire or to tie-up with cooks, we need to have a monetisation strategy)

1. Premium from ads

2. Commission on orders placed through the app
3. Commission on enrollment in premium cooking courses KPIs
4. Monthly active users
5. # enrolled per course
6. $Revenue from ads, courses, shopping
7. Number of new users every month
8. Users who finished their registered courses successfully

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 Interview -6
Interviewer: We are planning to touch the segment of home-makers. As PM, can you
design an ed-Tech app for home-makers to teach them skills related to hobbies?

Candidate: In this digital era, I assume that most of our users are accustomed to the usage of
smart devices. So, I would like to move directly to the user profile.

Interviewer: Sure, go ahead.

Candidate: Is the app focusing on the segment -like monetisation or only user acquisition or
engagement?

Interviewer: Which one do you prefer?

Candidate: I would like to add the segment of monetisation along with user engagement.

Interviewer: Okay, you can go with it.

Candidate: Can I also include Students in an academic break, WFH employees with spare time
(IT professionals), Enthusiasts as our users.

Interviewer: Yes, you can.

Candidate: Pain points that we can relate from a learning perspective are boredom in their free
time, a Discussion forum for like-minded people, Enthusiasm to learn new skills, Apprehension
of content available on the web, especially for the aged. From the monetisation perspective,
collaboration platforms for tutors and low remuneration from existing platforms are the pain
points.

Candidate: Do you have any specific pain point to be addressed?

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Interviewer: No, you can go ahead with these as of now.

Candidate: So, we can have the following features in the app:

A user can have three types of user accounts - Free, Subscription and Premium. So for each
skill they register, the following are the features related to each.

● Free -> Beginner level tutorials with an assessment test and the end
● Subscription -> Basic and advanced tutorial access with any time assessment and
certification, and join the network of like-minded people, engage in competitions and
discussions.
● Premium -> On-demand content and live interaction with a mentor
● Family and Student plans
● Text Narration and Video
● Initially advance payment for content creators, and commission-based in addition.
● Qualified content creators’ content will be promoted.
● Separate dashboard for a content creator with user engagement analytics
● Bonus points(payments) for live interaction and on-demand contents
● Agenda – Drive new content from other platforms like YouTube

Interviewer: Okay, how will the user journey look like? (This is another way of asking the
structure) Candidate:
● Landing Page we ask for suggestions on,
● Generic domains they prefer( Ex: Self-love)
● Skills( Eg: Gardening, Cooking etc.)
● Content creator Dashboard
● Activity tracker and analytics
● Tasks tab – Proceed to subsequent tutorial only if the task is completed
● Network
● Subscription feature
● Join the network of people enrolled in similar activities and brag about the achievements
● Participate in competitions related to the activity hosted by the application
● Free access to events and Webinars related to the activity
● Peer-to-peer learning.

Interviewer: So far, so good; this involves users acquisition, engagement, along with
monetisation; what technologies do you plan to use?

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Candidate:
● Server Client Model, with privilege checking for the client.
● Just like a usual streaming application, any existing cloud streaming to start with
● Later move to own Video delivery platform.

Interviewer: Okay, how will you know if these all solutions are really solving their pain points?

Candidate:

● Monthly active users(MAU) and daily active users (DAU)

● Number of people enrolled per a course
● Revenue from courses
● Number of new users every month
● Users who finished their registered courses successfully(To measure the success of a
course, so that modifications can be done if required)

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 Interview -7
Interviewer: Design a mobile application helping people choose food items considering
the food they are allergic to and design a meal plan for themselves.

Candidate: This is an interesting problem. If I may ask one thing, this app helps users design a
meal plan according to their allergy preferences and then display the recipes for making them?

Interviewer: Yes, that’s correct.

Candidate: Thank you. I would like first to identify the pain points that users allergic to certain
food products face. Based on this, I would like to discuss the features to be included in my app.
I would also like to see the currently available options vis a vis the need and identify gaps (if
any). Then I would like to proceed with the design elements. Do you want me to look into
anything else?

Interviewer: Your outline looks good. Please proceed.

Candidate: Okay, let’s first try to understand the problems people with food allergies face while
planning their meals. People with food intolerance may struggle to decide what and where to eat
daily. They need to be highly sure of the food quality in terms of the ingredients used. They tend
to cook for themselves since that is the most convenient and safe solution in most cases. For
this, they refer to multiple blogs and websites online to find the recipes they need and can eat.
Due to the sheer colossal number of blogs and options available, they may feel overwhelmed.
They would like to plan wrt their meals and thus prefer shopping for the food ingredients in
advance. This may or may not work out always as planned.

Interviewer: Okay. What are some of the features you think we should focus on for our meal
planner app?

Candidate: If we look deeper, we are looking for the option of searching recipes online, creating
a weekly plan, pre-made weekly plans would be a bonus, option of creating a shopping list,
filters for particular allergies and diets. An add-on could be displaying nearby grocery stores and
supermarkets indicating the availability of the ingredients, directions to reach there, ETA etc.
Additionally, we could show the online stores/restaurants (cloud kitchens) which could readily
supply the dish. Do you want me to focus on a particular feature?

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Interviewer: The feature list looks comprehensive. Ignore the option of readily available dishes
by some restaurants. Proceed with a wireframe for the rest of the features.

Candidate: Alright. The following are the primary utility features:

- The users should be able to specify their dietary preferences

- They can choose from predefined weekly menus and edit these menus
- They can read their recipes on their menus
- They can assemble a shopping list based on their menu
- We can have the following add ons -
- The expected time to cook a particular meal
- The approximate cost of all the required ingredients
- The recommended recipes section could be the top-most section based on their dietary
preferences
- Add meal types (e.g. Vegetarian, egg etc.)
- The predefined weekly menu plans describe the content (number of main dishes,
desserts, drinks etc.)
- Video of the cooking recipes along with text
- Hyperlocal delivery of the ingredients from stores nearby
- Star rating of the menu plans by other users
- Ads by cooking blogs and other websites
- Subscription for cooking course for specific diets

Interviewer: What can you say about the revenue model? Also, what are the KPIs you would
like to monitor?

Candidate: The following can be the sources of revenue -

- Premium from ads and boosting cooking blogs and websites

- Subscription-based model from users (monthly, six-monthly or yearly)
- Commission on transactions if orders for ingredients are placed through the app KPIs:
- Number of Active users
- Number of new users every month

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- Ratings of pre-defined menus
- Revenue from ads
- Retention rate
- Ratings of users on the app

Interviewer: This looks comprehensive. How would you describe your competitive landscape?

Candidate: I would like to look at my direct and indirect competitors. My direct competitors
would include apps currently providing meal planning services. Indirect competitors would
consist of the blogs, website and youtube channels dedicated to providing recipes in conjunction
with food allergies.

Interviewer: Thank you. That would be all.

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 Interview -8
Interviewer: We at Google are thinking of redesigning smart refrigerators. Tell me, how
would you go about it?

Candidate: Okay. So if I understand correctly, By smart, I mean something that uses technology
beyond the basic functionality. Do you want me to design a whole refrigerator? Or an add-on
that makes it ‘smart’? Also, are there any budget and resource constraints?

Interviewer: Yep, pretend you’re in Google, so resourcing and budget isn’t a constraint (yet).
And regarding the design — you pick, I’ll let you choose whatever you think makes more sense.

Candidate: Alright. Is it OK if I focus on household uses of refrigerators? I’m not very familiar
with commercial refrigerators.

Interviewer: Yes, you may proceed.

Candidate: I would first like to segment my users. Most people use refrigerators in similar ways,
but there might be potential differences in their experiences. I’ll try segmenting them by age, as
the usage patterns may be pretty different for older people, kids and everyone else. I may also
like to segment my customers based on their occupation - working class, students etc. Do you
want me to consider any specific segment?

Interviewer: How’d you take these segments into account when designing a smart fridge?

Candidate: Let’s see the different ‘refrigerator experiences’ experienced by different users

- Older people: will potentially find it challenging to access any products stored in the
bottom shelves or top-most shelves of the refrigerator. They might also forget what is and isn’t in
there, leading to perishable items expiring. A smart refrigerator could help in these scenarios.
- Working people: will often have busy lifestyles, go to work 9–6, and potentially have kids
and activities after work, leaving relatively little time to track food-related things. A smart
refrigerator could potentially help plug this gap.
- Kids: might find it hard to access certain sections in the fridge, if only due to their height.
Also, being kids, they might well consume a lot more of something sweet and tasty than they
should.

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Interviewer: Sounds like a good rationale. But for now, I’m most curious about what you’d do for
working people. So let’s explore this one in more depth.
Candidate: Alright. As mentioned earlier, these will often be busy people with relatively little free
time — especially if they have a kid. They’ll have jobs; they’ll have friends to hang out with in the
evenings. They earn enough to buy a smart fridge, but not so much that they don’t care about
wastage. They’ll likely be trying as much as possible to minimize effort and brainpower on
‘routine tasks’.

The following could be some add-ons in our smart fridge -

- An automatic scanner that scans all goods placed inside the refrigerator and can read
expiry dates. Ideally, it would have object recognition built-in to recognise objects and lookup
expected expiry ranges even without barcodes. This scanner would enable several
functionalities.
- Auto ordering certain ‘regular’ supplies when they are likely to run out. Milk, essential
groceries, baby products etc. It saves time thinking about these products and investing time into
ordering them.
- Alerting when certain produce is about to expire. It helps reduce wastage and save
money.
- Alerting when an expired product is taken out of the fridge. It prevents accidental illness
which could otherwise have been caused by eating expired food, particularly certain medicines!
- An app that could help communicate with the refrigerator, e.g. setting fitness goals ( what
to eat, what not to eat), suggesting recipes based on the groceries inside the fridge etc.

Interviewer: Not bad, but all relatively straightforward ideas. Anything else?

Candidate: I see a specific section of our target group also being health conscious, and our
smart fridge could help them in their efforts by tracking their usage of certain fitness products.
Help them achieve fitness goals (eg. On a “Fitness Goals” section of the app, a customer could
enter their intent to consume 30g of protein powder every day, and the fridge/app could remind
them if they’re falling behind or over-consuming. For those trying to lose weight, stretching out
that carton of chocolate milk over four days instead of gulping it down in one go :) )

I can also see a smart fridge taking on a more advisory/informative role when it comes to foods
consumed, e.g. sharing facts about lettuce recently bought (it’s all water, no calories!) or apples
(negative calories) or chocolate (that’s 78 extra minutes you need to run). All configurable from
the app, of course.

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 We could also consider integrating the smart fridge with any home device. This would enable
introducing the new functionality so that our target customer is already comfortable with it. For
instance, checking in “You’re nearly out of milk, shall I order another carton?” or “The spinach is
going to expire in another two days; consider cooking it over the weekend!”

Interviewer: Cool, time to wrap this up.

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PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT

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 1. Whatsapp
Interviewer: Suggest some ways to enhance the user experience of WhatsApp.

Candidate: Okay, so there are some broad problems we could focus on to improve the
WhatsApp experience.

First, there is a demand for a disappearing messages feature which deletes messages once
they have been seen. We could include more features choosing the quality of the media being
sent (low, moderate or high) and having the display picture as a picture or a video. WhatsApp
does not provide these features, so there has been an increased use of substitutes.

Interviewer: Very well. Can you think of anything else we could look into?

Candidate: We could introduce WhatsApp meet where people have the option of scheduling a
call with specified participants and required inbuilt tools such as screen-sharing, whiteboard and
games.

Interviewer: Great, now that you have defined your problem statement, can you point out the
goals you want to focus on?

Candidate: So our major goals would be: New features such as an option for automatic
deletion of messages after being seen, choosing the quality of media being sent, and
introducing the alternative of a video display. This will help us bring back the lost customers and
support new user acquisition with the already existing brand name and market leader. We
should aim to paint a picture that WhatsApp is a place where you have all the features in one
place.

Also, we want to look into the introduction of WhatsApp meet for desktop and phone. The
games option would be available only for the mobile version, and the share screen and
whiteboard options would be available only for the desktop version.

Interviewer: Okay, so how can you give me one use case of the first feature you described - the
disappearing messages?

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Candidate: So, Mr Prateek is a regular user of WhatsApp. WhatsApp has introduced a new
feature that allows the automatic deletion of messages after being seen. This feature is
indispensable for Prateek. Hence, he now opts for an application that provides the above
features and continues with WhatsApp.

Interviewer: Okay, now I need some use cases for the other features we just discussed.
Candidate: Mr Prashanth feels a lot of data is used nowadays to download and share media on
WhatsApp. He feels an option to be selected for the type of quality to be sent must be provided.
Thus, this would enable him to reduce the amount of data used. This is a use case for the
second feature we discussed.

Then, Mrs Aditi wants to display a video on her WhatsApp and a song that can be changed
whenever she wants. This new feature helps her satisfy her psychological need.
A group of friends preparing for the CAT exam would want to get in touch through a video call at
a predetermined time amidst their busy schedule and have some games to be played as a
stressbuster.

Another tuition teacher, with the increasing popularity of online tuitions, would like to have
classes through an online platform on a desktop with screen share and whiteboard options. If
WhatsApp provides this feature, she will naturally use it, as it is a commonly used medium for
their interactions.

Interviewer: Fair enough. Now tell me, how do you propose to include these updates?

Candidate: Firstly, we need to develop the additional features required. Simultaneously, have a
dedicated team for the introduction of WhatsApp meet. It would be a paid version for desktops
with three free trials and can be used only once per WhatsApp account. We need to have a
well-created plan for implementing these developments and have a pre-determined release date
so that the work can be achieved accordingly on a team and an individual level.

Interviewer: And how would you judge the success of these new rollouts?

Candidate: I would do so by tracking a few common KPIs.

Interviewer: Can you name some?

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Candidate: Yes, I would track the increase in impressions on the app, the increase in users for
WhatsApp, Customer Lifetime Value, Customer Acquisition Rate, Customer Conversion Rate,
Churn Rate and the Dwell Time.
If these are a success, we can try to find out measures to increase user acquisition through
referrals and other campaigns. If they are not, we will need to find out the new problems and the
reasons for failure and thus take the necessary steps.

Interviewer: Thank you. That would be all.

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 2. Amazon
Candidate: What do you mean when you say, “Improve Amazon?” Are you referring to
the core Amazon.com product experience?

(The candidate wants to confirm if he should focus on the shopping experience or on something like amazon pay,
memberships like audible, prime etc. which are integrated as options on amazon shopping website)

Interviewer: Yes.

Candidate: We can improve the core Amazon shopping experience by focusing on

engagement, retention, revenue, and acquisition. Which one do you want me to focus on?

(It is always a good idea to think and state the metrics which you wish to address, especially while answering a
product improvement based question)

Interviewer: Which one do you recommend?

Candidate: I would like to focus on retention. Right now, Amazon enjoys a strong brand
preference when it comes to e-commerce. So, focusing on retention and ensuring that people
come back on Amazon more often would indirectly lead to more revenue.

Interviewer: Sounds good. Candidate: Can I brainstorm for a bit? The candidate takes one minute.
Candidate: I have a few ideas in mind:

1. x Items Just for You. Amazon will recommend to the user a list of eight to ten items every
few days. Amazon can suggest items that the user is likely to buy. This feature will give users a
reason to come back or, at the very least, just keep Amazon top-of-mind. We can provide
discounts as well to entice customers further.

2. Daily Ratings. Every day a user can log on to Amazon to look at some pre-selected
products. These are products that are not selling well for some reason, and we want user
feedback. The user will look at the entire product page and write down what they think needs
improvement. Is the price too high? Are the product images poor? Users will then get a

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stackable 3% off coupon. These coupons can be stacked up to 10 times. This not only boosts
retention; it would also give us feedback.

3. Retention Coupon. If a user has not recently visited or purchased, that user will receive a
special 10 to 15 percent off coupon. This can be applied to any item. This will encourage users
to come back to Amazon and buy.

(After listing the ideas/features, it is a good practice also to state what you think is the best to be
recommended/implemented by evaluating it against any specific criteria)

Interviewer: Out of all of these ideas, which one would you recommend?

Candidate: I would recommend “Items Just for You.” I believe we already have most of the data
to offer a sale based on the profit margin (e.g., Item X has a profit margin of 20 per cent, so give
a 10 percent off coupon). It would be easy to implement. We could start by testing this on a
small subset of users.

Interviewer: Why offer a discount on products we predict users will buy anyway?

Candidate: That is a valid concern. Here are a few reasons why the discount would work well.
When users buy something, they usually buy other things too. It’s likely we won’t be offering
sales on expensive items through this anyway since most people don’t buy expensive items on
a whim. This will most likely increase sales. More sales at a lower profit margin mean more
profit. We can offer things that do not sell as well but still might be relevant to a user’s purchase
history. We can offer more significant discounts on items that do not sell well and smaller deals
on things that do. Obviously, we would not mark down popular items.

Interviewer: How will you measure the success of such a feature?

Candidate: Here is a list of metrics that I think can be used,

1. % of purchases made from the recommended list per user

2. No of purchases of the listed item – To verify the usefulness of the suggestion
3. Revenue/user from the items in the recommended list
4. Review the items from the list by the user

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Interviewer: Alright! We can wrap up this discussion now.

Other useful links :

1. Improving Amazon using design thinking principles- Amazon_UX_casestudy

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 3. Google Maps
Interviewer: Suggest some ways to improve the Google Maps

Candidate: Is the goal to improve the entire app of Google maps or a specific feature?

Interviewer: You can pick any one feature

Candidate:: Alright, should I focus on a mobile app or website?

Interviewer: Focus on the mobile app

Candidate:: What is our goal of improvement? Is it increasing engagement, increasing new

users, making UX better, or anything else that you have in mind?

Interviewer: So, we want to improve user engagement in features other than navigation.
Features like ‘exploring nearby businesses’

Candidate:: I have seen that in India, most people associate google maps with navigation.
However, this is still a broad assumption. Do we have any data on which features users
spend the most and least time? And, what are the most pressing problems faced by the product
right now?

Interviewer: Call rate to businesses is less; booking rate is also meagre.

Candidate:: Alright. So, ‘businesses’ is a large bucket. Should I pick some specific category of
businesses like restaurants?

Interviewer: Yeah, you can go ahead with restaurants

Candidate:: Thanks. So let me reframe the goal - we have to increase the engagement for
features of restaurant businesses in google maps. Is this good to move ahead?

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Interviewer: Yeah, go ahead.

Candidate:: We can introduce a new feature that allows users to follow their friends or their
favorite food bloggers & critics. Users would be able to view the recently visited & reviewed
restaurants by them & receive notifications of the same, thereby increasing their engagement
with the app.

Interviewer: What would be a use-case of this feature?

Candidate:: The user would get reliable reviews of the nearby restaurants from people with a
similar palate, food preferences & lifestyle, helping him make a better choice. Additionally, users

would be able to form groups with their friends & recommend restaurants to each other. The
user would also get an option to share his location with his group members. If the user visits a
restaurant, the algorithm would automatically put that restaurant with a “ Visited by X ” caption in
the group members’ restaurant browsing list. It will also make it easier for his friends to navigate
to his location or track his location during their dine-out plans.

Interviewer: Very well. Is there any existing feature that we could improve?

Candidate:: While the photos feature has a vibe section, it would be beneficial to have a
different vibe feature so that the user can, in one glance, follow the social setting of the
place-Romantic, family-friendly, Casual, Cafe, etc. The reliability could be improved by
integrating the previous feature mentioned with the caption “X found this family-friendly” if I
follow X. This could be further added as one of the filters during my restaurant search. Also, the
menu feature should be enhanced by mandating restaurants to upload menus of their
restaurants. This will make google maps a one-stop solution instead of making the user switch
to food apps for more information on the menu & the vibe of the place.

Secondly, the percentage match feature indicates the match based on my past reviews & visits
to similar restaurants. On clicking on it, it could show the extent of factors that have matched.

Interviewer: Could you elaborate more on this?

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Candidate:: When the user sees the percentage match, it’s difficult to follow what it is about &
how to use it to decide on a restaurant’s visit. It could further show if it’s for a location match, a
price match or a cuisine match & the extent of the same.

Interviewer: Sounds good. How would you gauge the success of these features?

Candidate: I would use different success metrics for the features mentioned above. For the
group formation & follow feature, I would measure its success by tracking the number of users
following other users & the number of users part of user groups. For the vibe & menu feature,
tracking the number of clicks & the number of uses of the vibe filter would be appropriate. The
number of clicks could evaluate the usage of the percentage match feature & its reliability could
be assessed by popup-based feedback from the user on his restaurant’s visit.

Interviewer: Alright. But since you mentioned many features, how would you prioritise the
rollout of these features as a product manager?

Candidate: I would prioritize them according to their impact on user engagement as that was
our primary goal & the time taken to rollout & launch these features.

Furthermore, I’d also take note of the features already in the pipeline & case of similarity
between those features & some of the suggested features; I’d give them priority due to a higher
probability of standard technology stack, saving us time and resources.

Interviewer: That’s great. Thank you.

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 4. Netflix
Interviewer: What are some of the features you would like to see on Netflix to improve the
user experience?

Candidate: This is an interesting question. Netflix is a popular streaming platform. The

pandemic has changed the way people use streaming platforms. Many have felt the need to
stay connected to their loved ones by watching movies and TV shows together. Netflix’s
competitors, such as Disney+ and Prime Video, offer ‘group viewing’: this feature allows users to
watch a programme remotely with their friends and family and chat and react simultaneously.
Therefore one feature that I would like to see on Netflix would be that of ‘group viewing’.

Interviewer: That seems reasonable. How would you proceed?

Candidate: So the crux of the need for the new feature would be like this - Netflix’s Users want
a way to watch movies and TV shows remotely with their friends or family so that they can share
time and activities together even when far away from each other.

I would want to prioritize the following three aspects:

● How might we help users watch movies and shows remotely with their friends and
family?
● How might we help improve the feature so that every user can interact with each other
during the show?
● How might we help users know when their watch party is planned and about to start?

Interviewer: Sure, go ahead.

Candidate: These are the features that I would like to have in Netflix’s group view

● Adding friends directly with their email

● Prompt to ask if everybody is ready
● start/play button
● Create a Netflix party for now
● Chat to talk with friends/family
● Emoji reactions

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Let’s see the user flow-

Interviewer: This seems great. Could you elaborate on the wireframe?

Candidate: The low-fidelity wireframe could look like the following-

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I feel the following two idiosyncrasies may be needed to consider:

● Invite people to the party: entering everyone’s emails is tedious, plus you need to
actually know all their emails. Instead, we could have a feature of copying the invitation
link
● The chat feature needs to shift the movie screen space instead of popping over it

Interviewer: Great. That would be all!

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 5. Amazon Pay
Interviewer: Can you suggest improvements for Amazon Pay?

Candidate: Should the improvements be focused on overall product design or user experience
enhancement.

Interviewer: You can consider whichever you feel is essential for immediate user acquisition
and retention.

Candidate: I’d like to compare Amazon Pay with the competitors who are doing significantly
better. PhonePe, Paytm and Google Pay are three, which instantly come to mind. All three have
one thing in common, i.e., they are standalone finance apps on the play store, whereas Amazon
Pay doesn’t have a separate app but is within the Amazon Shopping app. Keeping this
difference in mind, I’d like to consider all the users who might benefit from having Amazon Pay
integrated within the shopping app.

(Amazon pay is accessible both on amazon.in and the amazon app, with the significant difference that the scan and
pay feature is present only on the mobile app. Here, the candidate considers the mobile experience of amazon pay,
comparing it with the competitor apps.)

Interviewer: Ok. Go ahead.

Candidate: Currently, the option to go to the amazon pay dashboard is by clicking on the icon
displayed on the horizontal sliding display (with the following options in order - amazon pay,
send money, scan UPI, pay bills, etc.), along with other shopping recommendations above and
below it. I feel that users might miss out on seeing the payment option pane. Hence it would be
better to have a button on the top next to the cart – a one switch button that takes you to
amazon pay.

(The candidate suggests some sort of a toggle button to switch between the amazon shopping app and pay app as it
might help in providing an uncluttered experience to the users)

Interviewer. Sounds Good. Can you suggest any other improvement?

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Candidate: Yes. As I said earlier, users prefer an uncluttered view and get attracted to the
offers while making payments, which incentivises them to pay using amazon pay. In the current
view, all the offers are listed at the bottom and are visible only when the user scrolls, say for
example the discount offer on booking Oyo, movie, tickets, travel, recharge etc. Instead of
individual offers listed in a vertical scrollable mode, it would be better to list the offers as stories
on the top of the first screen (horizontally).

Interviewer: But, don’t you think the number of stories would increase, and the user would just
get bored if he sees – say 2-3 discounts that are not of interest.

Candidate: That is true, but by gathering insights on buying patterns or past payment usage of
the user which amazon already uses while recommending, the offers which are listed in the form
of stories can be personalized, suppose the user uses amazon pay to pay for his recharges- an
offer on recharge could be the first story to be displayed. Additionally, the user’s most frequent
categories of transactions can also be listed as suggestions. When a category is picked, the
offer mentioned above can be updated to reflect the new category. Do you want me to further
think of other feature improvements?

Interviewer: These seem fine. Thank you.

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 6. Uber
Interviewer: Can you think of ways UBER can handle the problems from the COVID-19
pandemic?

Candidate: Right now, Uber's problems might be due to these two reasons; The decreased
need for mobility due to the imposed lockdowns and the change in attitude towards ride-sharing
services as unsafe and a source of transmission. We can attempt to improve customer
perception of the latter.

Interviewer: What improvements would you make, or what feature would you like to introduce
to handle that situation?

Candidate: First, we might want to understand the primary reasons people might still want to
use Uber in these times. Let us imagine Jack wishes to shop for some groceries which he could
not order online. Jack does not own a vehicle, and he does not have someone to drop him at a
store. Jack is middle-aged and weighs on the heavier side and thus wants to be extremely
careful about his every action that might lead to an infection.

For Jack to choose Uber, he needs to be confident that nothing can go wrong with choosing an
Uber for his trip. We need to solve for the feeling of lack of control over the external factors
involving the cab, which might be in terms of:
- having no way to inspect the cab's cleanliness,
- if there was someone with an infection who might've traveled right before him,
- having to sit near the cab driver who is less than the mandated six feet apart,
- having to hire a different cab back home after shopping.

Since the focus is reassurance, it might help Jack check how thoroughly and how recently the
cab was cleaned before he gets on board. A new feature which shows the cab log for the
previous two days where Jack can check the number of trips the cab made, the anonymous
record of the body temperatures of all the last passengers and a timestamped video of the most
recent decontamination of the cab, which the user can review can be made available.

Interviewer: Could you demonstrate the two features you mentioned using simple hand-drawn
wireframe diagrams?

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Candidate: Sure, Can I take a minute?

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ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

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 Interview - 1
Interviewer: You are a PM at Youtube, YouTube traffic went down 5% — how would you
report this issue to the executive team?

Candidate: I have a few doubts that I need clarification on before moving ahead with my
analysis.
What exactly do we mean by traffic here? Website visits, or plays on videos, or time spent
watching?
Is this impacting all user segments? Or maybe only a particular device type, or country, or
browser?
When did the dip start and how long did it last?

Interviewer: the average time spent watching per session is down 5% month-over-month
worldwide on mobile only.

Candidate:
Analysis
That’s great!
I will now try to list down all the possible factors responsible for the dip. I can bifurcate it into
two:
Internal Factors
1. Data accuracy (e.g. We should confirm our reporting tool is working as expected)
2. Context (e.g. This could be an expected seasonal drop)
3. Access to the product (e.g. We might have had a major outage)
4. Product changes (e.g. We could have shipped some code that introduced a bug)
5. Product quality (e.g. Recent content might have been bad enough to drive away traffic)
External Factors
1. User habits (e.g. Video consumption is down across the industry)
2. Referrers (e.g. Facebook made a change to limit linking to YouTube videos)
3. Competition (e.g. Instagram TV released a new feature that captured our users)
4. Society (e.g. There’s less active users because of civil unrest in a country that typically
drives a lot of traffic)

Candidate: Have we checked this dip compared to a similar metric — for example, time on
page? Is there anything else indicating that our reporting tool might be broken?

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Interviewer: Yes, the reporting tool and the metric is absolutely fine!

Candidate: Is there any history of a similar dip? We’re close to major holidays, perhaps that
could lead to less product usage overall.

Interviewer: The only time we’ve seen a drop of more than 1% this time of year was due to
major outages, but we have had 100% uptime in the past few months. This information also
addresses our next factor, as access to the product hasn’t been disrupted.

Candidate:Is it possible we shipped some code that introduced a bug? Or, did we release any
significant feature changes?

Interviewer: The user interface for the video player was recently changed on mobile, UI change
involved making the “Send video to device” button two times larger, and reducing the “Full
screen” button by half its original size.
The “Send video to device” button can be used to play a video that’s on your mobile phone on
another device such as a Chromecast, Roku, SmartTV, etc.

Candidate:This is interesting, but we need to investigate further.Have we noticed a change in

the frequency at which the ‘Send video to device’ and ‘Full screen’ buttons are being used on
mobile? Maybe mobile users are having a harder time tapping the ‘Full screen’ button now that
it’s smaller, and are tapping the ‘Send video to device’ button by accident because it’s too big?
Tapping ‘Send video to device’ would end the session and therefore decrease the average time
per session. And if the smaller ‘Full screen’ button is harder to tap, it might frustrate some users
and lead them to end their session early.

Interviewer: Yes, this is likely to be one of the drivers of the decrease. Continue exploring the
other factors listed above. Let’s assume the interviewer says no there's no change due to any
other factor listed.

Candidate:
Conclusion: Based on our discussion of the problem, I would explain to the executive team that
our time spent watching per session has dropped by 5% month-over-month on mobile because
of a change in the video player UI, which has negatively affected the user experience. Mobile
users are having a hard time tapping the new, smaller ‘Full screen’ button and are ending their

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session prematurely. They are also now more often tapping the larger ‘Send video to device’
button unintentionally which also ends their session early.

We’ve also double checked that no other drivers were causing this engagement dip. A good
next step here would probably be to revert the UI changes, think through why we made these
changes in the first place, and brainstorm how we can achieve the goals we were aiming for in a
different way.

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 Interview - 2
Interviewer: We at Google Pay are experiencing a 10% week-on-week reduction in the net
redemption rates of the gift cards/coupons issued to customers — how would you
debug this issue? Also suggest a product solution to this problem.

Candidate:Alright, before we start I had a few clarifying questions. I would like to get
acquainted a little bit about how gift cards work in Google Pay. I have personally not used them
well enough.

Interviewer: Alright, so Google Pay is a utility app used in India today for multiple purposes, say
to pay your postpaid bill, electricity bill, water bills and any kind of utility bills. Additionally, you
can also use it to make payments to merchants using simple UPI QR codes. You can also send
money to your friends and family in your contact list very easily without involving a bank account
transfer procedure. It is also expanded into insurance and a few other categories. So, that's
what Google Pay essentially does today and we reward customers for every transaction they
do, which could be a third party merchant reward or a cash benefit on your next transaction
using Google Pay. Hope that clarifies.

Candidate:Yeah, thanks. Also, how do you define net redemption rates?

Interviewer: For the sake of simplicity, let us consider NRR as Total number of redemptions in a
week divided by the total number of issuances in the same week.

Candidate: Okay, if there has been such redemption offered to customers in the last week
which they are redeeming this week, they are also counted.

Interviewer: Yes, that is correct.

Candidate:How long has this issue been noticed now?

Interviewer: It has been just over 10 days, say 2 weeks for simplicity that we have been
working on this issue.

Candidate: I would probably want to take a couple of minutes to think over this and develop a
plan on how I would approach this.

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Wanting to know more about the issue, is the issue only on the mobile platform or is it spread
across? I am assuming Google Pay is a mobile-first product working largely on the mobile side.

Interviewer: That’s correct. Focus on the mobile platform part.

Candidate: I also wanted to understand what are the different sources of these coupons that
are shown to users?

Interviewer: Good question. Basically, the different channels would be, say you are using the
money transfer feature, then you would be issued certain rewards, That is one way. The second
would be all types of bill payments and the third category would be insurance and other
subcategories.

Candidate: Okay that was helpful. Do we have data about if we are facing this issue for any
one channel or across multiple channels?

Interviewer: So it's an issue across all channels.

Candidate: Have we been notified on a lot of issues on the redemption side by the customers
as well?

Interviewer: Not yet. We haven’t received any customer feedback as of now.

Candidate: Sounds good. Has there been any new launches in the last couple of weeks or any
recent change in general?

Interviewer: Right, there has been a new launch that we have done in the food merchant
category. Due to the pandemic,we have recently completely replaced all our movie related
rewards with food merchant rewards. This is the new thing that has happened in the last two
weeks.

Candidate:Are we also seeing the decline in certain geographic or is it a pan India issue?

Interviewer: It isn't geography specific as of now. The decline is steady across all the areas.

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Candidate: Was it possible to gather data for metros v/s non metros or anything of that sort?

Interviewer: Yes, in the non metro cities, these food merchant coupons have nearly 0
redemption rate while in the metros the redemption rates are low and in the range of
0.05-0.75%.

Candidate: With the information that I have, I have some hints about what the real issue is. But
just to be double clear before we chart out a plan, I personally feel there’s something to do with
the new category that we have introduced and also something to do with the geographies. I
would like to pick up a random coupon issued by a Delhi merchant and compare the net
redemption rates in Delhi with other parts of the country. I am also assuming it should be 0
because a coupon issued in Delhi for Delhi will not be usable in other parts of the country.

Interviewer: Yes, you are right. There is a reduction in redemption if customers in Delhi are
provided with coupons of merchants outside Delhi.

Candidate: Sure, I think it is fair to conclude that the issue was happening because a new
category was introduced for food coupons and the food coupons that were going unredeemed
by the users were actually not relevant to them since they belonged to some other geography.
To put it in simpler words, a coupon issued by a Delhi food merchant is not useful for someone
staying in Mumbai. Hence, the redemption rates were going down.

Interviewer: I think you have nailed his problem. The hypothesis and the approach were also
great. I would also want you to find a product solution for this issue to see what we could do with
it.

Candidate: Sure, I will just take another couple of minutes to jot down what I have so far.
Wanted to clarify a couple of things before that. You said we had replaced the movie ticket
category with food category. So I am assuming we would also have a location tied up to some of
these coupons. I am also assuming that we are able to capture the location of users doing their
transactions on Google Pay.

Candidate: Alright. First of all, as a short term solution, I would hold the issuance of any new
coupons in the food category if they are not tagged with their geographies. A quick fix would be
attaching geographies with the coupons and these coupons can only go to people who have
completed transactions in those locations.

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Interviewer: But do you mean to say that every reward needs to have that check? Or should it
be selectively done?

Candidate: So, all the rewards that are being generated in the food segment need to follow that
unless there are some coupons which are agnostic of the location like a Swiggy coupon valid
across the country.

Interviewer: So, basically you are saying that there could be a location filter that could be
applied on selective food merchants and that needs to be checked on every issuance.

Candidate: Yes, that would be my immediate fix. At the same time, I also have a long term
solution. I am thinking about a feedback mechanism that our Google Pay customers can use to
talk about their grievances regarding any coupon. Right now, the issue was about the
irrelevance of coupons based on geographies. Similarly, if I am a vegetarian and get coupons
on non vegetarian dishes, maybe that's not valid for me. Hence, to club multiple such issues I
would go for a feedback mechanism that can take multiple customer input on how relevant they
found the coupons to be and I would use AI to gauge customer attributes to pitch coupons to
individual customers.

Interviewer: Absolutely, a lot of industry players need this solution today. I think this is the end
of our discussion. Thank you.

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PRODUCT METRICS

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 Design a CRM application for Amazon
Delivery Partners and Personnel
The brief flow of operations -
1. Receiving of delivery order - information about the inventory type, pick-up location, weight of
inventory item, amount/quantity of inventory, delivery location, route, pitstops (if any),
handover point, total money needed for the trip (fuel, toll etc.)
2. At each pitstop, the driver has to update the following information -
● Update and confirm pickup of inventory
● Update inventory checks and condition reports at the handover point
● Register a complaint (if any)
● Update on delays (if any)
● Update the expenses and receipts
● Receive payment post order fulfillment

Let’s first see why Amazon needs a CRM tool and what will be its use cases. The CRM tool will
be primarily used by the operations team, delivery partners, and delivery personnel. The CRM
tool will automate the order processing; it would help address the grievances of the delivery
partners and personnel, manual status checks to improve efficiency.
Let’s first identify customers -
Our primary users would be the delivery partners and personnel. The delivery personnel are
also the first touchpoint for the clients.

Features of the CRM tool -

● Dashboard
● Complaints portal
● Bill and salary management
● Inventory tracking

Prioritizing the features -

The complaints portal is probably the most essential use case for the delivery partners and
personnel (our primary users)

Drilling down into complaints portal - features specific to it :

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1. Training guide to using the app (as most of the delivery partners might have low levels of
literacy and may not be that proficient in using apps)
● Simulated GUI guide (providing workflow of every actionable sequence)
● Chatbots
● Short ‘How to’ videos that cater to every user interface touchpoint
● Native language support
2. Escalation mechanism
● Escalate the query/complaint to relevant authorities on a weighted average of the score
on a set of parameters (e.g. order size, deadline, type of issue/damage)
● Ticket management system with status and actionable buttons for request update

3. Nearby assistance
Service Station - A map-enabled feature that shows the availability of vehicle service stations so
that the long-distance delivery partners could use one in case of an emergency breakdown. The
company could also consider getting in a partnership with these vehicle service stations to save
costs. The direct transfer of payment between the company and the delivery partner can also be
an
add-on.

Prioritizing features on the following criteria -

● Impact on revenue
● Ease of implementation
● Ease of business

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Based on the total priority score, we should first go and build the Nearby assistance feature. It
would standardize the repairs and maintenance process for the delivery partners and personnel
and cut down the maintenance cost, which could be a significant overhead. Also, as the delivery
partners and personnel could only visit listed garages for servicing, this could result in a higher
TAT for delivery. This feature is difficult to implement due to dependency on the garage as they
needed to be onboarded.

Key metrics -
● # of complaints successfully resolved/# of complaints registered
● % reduction in inventory damage
● Reduction time in clearing queries
● Reduction in average maintenance cost per delivery partner
● Reduction in average TAT for a source-destination pair

The CRM would help improve the overall efficiency and make it easier for the firm to track
activities on the ground.

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GO TO MARKET

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 Interview - 1
Interviewer: Should Google enter the OTT market? Prepare a Go To Market strategy for the
same

Candidate: To reiterate, we have to assess the feasibility of Google entering the OTT segment
and prepare a Go to Market strategy for the same.

Interviewer: That is correct.

Candidate: What is the objective of Google for entering the OTT market?

Interviewer: It is majorly user acquisition

Candidate: Is there any specific geography Google is looking into?

Interviewer: Let us focus on India for now

Candidate: Thank you. Please allow me a couple of minutes to structure my thoughts

Interviewer: Yes Sure

Candidate: First I would like to analyze the competition in the market. Do we have any data
around this?

Interviewer: No we do not have any particular data but you are free to make your own
assumptions.

Candidate: The major competitors right now will be Netflix, Hotstar and Amazon Prime. Netflix is
known for its content and it's easy-to-use interface. Hotstar is primarily focussed on Indian
centric content and production. Do you want me to dive deeper into the competitors or can I
start analyzing the company’s capabilities?

Interviewer: You may start with analyzing the company capabilities.

Candidate: Google has a deeper presence compared to the competitive landscape. Due to its
product offerings across multiple sectors, it can easily integrate any new digital offering. Also the
data available in the google ecosystem will be crucial in product promotion and the

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recommender engine. Entering the OTT segment will help Google expand its product portfolio in
the digital domain.

Interviewer: That sounds fair. What type of customers do you think is feasible to target?

Candidate: The existing customers of Google vary based on the product in question. Due to its
heavy presence, new user acquisition will be easier. Google should first push the new OTT
product among its existing customers. Post that it should go for GenX and millennials who are
heavy consumers of OTT content and do not mind paying to try out Google’s new OTT product.
They will also be one of the early adopters of the product.

Do you want me to segment the consumers further?

Interviewer: No this is fine.

Candidate: Do we plan on collaborating with anyone to enter this segment?

Interviewer: We do not have any data around this. What would be your suggestion?

Candidate: In terms of technological capabilities, Google is well equipped to enter the segment
on its own. However if we talk about onboarding content, in order to reduce its initial investment
it can partner with a production house and lease out its content.

Interviewer: Sounds fair.

Candidate: Do we have any data around the government regulations or geopolitical situation
that might affect our go to market strategy?

Interviewer: No we need not look into that, this will be all. What is your final recommendation
around this?

Candidate: I would recommend that Google should enter the OTT segment. To start with it
should focus on its existing consumer pool and leverage the data to build its capabilities. It can
then synergise them with new user acquisition of the early adopter and innovators. For the
content onboarding, it can collaborate with an existing production house.

Interviewer: What features would you have on its MVP

Candidate: For the MVP, I will focus on low effort and high impact features. It should have the
basic features of browsing through content based on multiple features and a recommendation

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system. Additionally, I will have a feature to seamlessly share it across platforms which will help
in new user acquisition where users can suggest movies to non users in the Google ecosystem.
There will also be a referral program for the early adopters.

Interviewer: Quickly design a go to market strategy for the same.

Candidate: The MVP will consist of all the basic features that an OTT platform has alongwith
some additional features for cross platform integration and synergy. For pricing, I believe it
should be initially priced lower than Netflix. This will help achieve the objective of new user
acquisition. The existing google ads ecosystem will help in promoting the product. The existing
google platforms can be used to advertise the new product to its target audience.

Interviewer: That will be all, thank you.

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 Interview - 2
Interviewer: Swiggy wants to enter the restaurant table reservation service. Do you think this is
feasible? If so, what should be their go to market strategy?

Candidate: To reiterate, swiggy wants to enter the market of table reservation service and they
are looking at its feasibility and launch strategies.

Interviewer: Yes that is correct.

Candidate: What is the objective or rationale as to why the company wants to enter the new
business?

Interviewer: The main goal is adding more revenue streams and new user acquisition.

Candidate: I would like to start with first analyzing the competitor and the company capabilities
and then moving on to the consumers.. Does this sound fair?

Interviewer: Yes, you can move ahead with this approach

Candidate: To start with, in terms of competitors, Zomato is its closest competitor because it has
its presence in online food ordering and table reservations. Apart from zomato, companies like
dine out are also competitors in the online table booking segment. A very big factor which is a
positive for swiggy is that it already has a lot of data in terms of its existing users. It can use that
data to onboard them to the new product and convert the non users. This will increase the
customer awareness and product adoption. Should I move forward with analyzing the different
types of stakeholders involved and the personas to be targetter?

Interviewer: Yes

Candidate: The two major stakeholders I can identify are : Customers and Restaurants.
Customers want a one stop solution to decide their favorite restaurants to visit. They need
different filters from budget to cuisine to availability of parking spaces before they can make a
decision. Here I believe the target audience will have an overlap with the existing customers of
Swiggy. In addition, swiggy can target the working class who have the money and the
willingness to try out new restaurants. From the restaurant perspective, overbooking of the
tables might lead to loss of revenue but at the same time table booking will help them streamline
their service. So they will need proper safeguards in the product to deny late arrivals and be
more restaurant friendly to use.

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Interviewer: That sounds fair, how will you plan the go to market strategy?

Candidate: In terms of the promotion, we can use the traditional and modern channels in
marketing. Existing swiggy platform can be used to onboard the existing users. The digital
channels can be used to target the tech savvy innovators.

Interviewer: What metrics will you use to track the performance:

Candidate: We can use metrics like conversion rate and CAC to measure the acquisition. The
MAU and DAU will give us the users using the app. Number of reservations, Percentage of
visitation can be used to calculate customer engagement. We can use metrics such as ratings
and NPS to gauge customer satisfaction.

Interviewer: That will be all, thank you!

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NEW USE CASES

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 1. Zoom
Interviewer: Zoom is expanding rapidly and trying to cater to a broader range of people.
Can you help Zoom Identify a new user segment?

Candidate: So currently, the significant users of Zoom are either corporates or in the education
industry (teachers/students). Considering the recent constraints in physically meeting with the
doctors to diagnose health ailments and treatment, we could diversify into telemedicine.

Interviewer: So, who are the users you are trying to target specifically?

Candidate: We can target either the patients or the doctors. If we are to think of a solution for
the long term beyond the COVID pandemic, we can consider the segments that are more likely
to face difficulties even in regular times. Rural India might benefit from remote diagnosis as
there is a shortage of medical personnel availability and timely treatment.

Interviewer: Great. Now can you identify the essential requirements of these users?

Candidate: Technical literacy might be a significant problem. But with the growing internet
access in rural India, we can expect the youth to learn quickly. Also, There should be greater
process fluency as routines are necessary to alleviate the discomfort with technology. Local
language support is essential, considering the demographic spread of the country.

Interviewer: That sounds good. What features do you think we need to include in the product to
fulfill these requirements?

Candidate: So we can start with a primary listing of doctors with their brief profiles. This way,
the patients can choose a doctor according to their problems. We can include a feature to book
appointments through calendar-based scheduling. During the consultation, the patient should
upload medical reports and scan reports within zoom. It can also provide an option for the
doctor to attach a prescription, which the patient can show at any pharmacy to procure their
medicine.

126
Interviewer: Since you mentioned targeting the rural population, how do you plan to collect the
consulting fees from the patients through this platform?

Candidate: There has been a good penetration of Banks among the rural population since the
majority of the government subsidies are bank transfers. Integrating any of the existing payment
gateways like Razorpay will serve this purpose.
Interviewer: Great, that can be done. But do you think a company like Zoom should resort to a
third-party application for completing the payment?

Candidate: Zoom can consider developing its own payment portal. It could add more value to
zoom and help zoom diversify its business model like in travel or a govt app. Consulting app,
the payment integration can help zoom to be chosen. We can come around with something like
a ZoomPay or integrate a third party payment interface like PhonePe or GPay for the purpose.

Interviewer: Alright. The medical records upload and maintenance -aren't there data security
concerns since a patient's medical data is personal and confidential.

Candidate: Yes, that's something that we need to devise cautiously. But I think we have many
applications that store personal data and similar information in secured databases. We can use
e2ee(end to end encryptions) or a blockchain-based DB to ensure it. But having said that, I think
zoom should have robust security as it had recently faced a backlash in the industry for lack of
proper web security.

Interviewer: Okay, Great, let's move on to how you will validate your features' effectiveness. Do
you have any metrics in mind?

Candidate: Yes, like any other mobile application, we can measure the app's effectiveness by
the number of downloads and retention. Also, we can count the increase in physician
consultations from the app to measure the response. It would give us a better picture of how
efficiently the customers use it and how much it helps the physicians. I think this would be my
most significant matrix, followed by the former.

127
Interviewer: The application’s downloads and retention need not necessarily mean that the
company can find a revenue stream. How do you ensure that the various stakeholders are
satisfied with the service provided?

Candidate: I think, along with the matrix as mentioned above, it is also essential to check on
the feedback from physicians and the patients. A physician shall be occasionally surveyed on
various features such as the ease of using the platform, the reports and prescription uploading
feature, the difficulty associated with payment of the consultation fee. Since most of them won't
give out a comprehensive survey, users will be asked to rate the doctor and the platform. A low
rating could be further investigated by giving a call back in their local language to understand
the associated problems.

Interviewer: That is great, but I am still unclear why the patients have to rate the doctors.

Candidate: Thank you for posing this question. Rating of the doctor is not essentially a
validation matrix but can help the customers to choose the best physicians, which will help to
improve user experience in the future.

Interviewer: Sounds good. What features do you think we need to include in the product to fulfil
these requirements.

Candidate: So we can start with a basic listing of doctors with their brief profiles. This way, the
patients can choose a doctor according to the problem they want a consultation for. We can
include a feature to book appointments through calendar-based scheduling. During the
consultation, the doctor should be able to upload medical reports and scan reports on a portal
from where the patient can access those. It can also provide an option for the doctor to include
a prescription, which the patient can show at any pharmacy to procure their prescription.

Interviewer: Great, so how do you consider collecting consultation fees from the patients?

Candidate: Once the consultation is over, the patient should be able to pay the fees through
other payment portals that we can integrate within Zoom. There are several payment gateways
available like Razorpay. Considering rural India, most of them have a bank account, and making
payments online won't be difficult.

128
Interviewer: Makes sense. But do you think a company like Zoom should develop a payment
feature of its own rather than relying on third-party gateways?

Candidate: Yes, it could add more value to zoom and help zoom diversify its business model.
Like in a travel app or a govt. Consulting app, the payment integration can help zoom to be
chosen. We can come around with something like a ZoomPay or just integrate a third party
payment interface like PhonePe or Gpay for the purpose.

Interviewer: Okay, and about the medical records upload and maintenance, doesn’t it raise
data security concerns since a patient’s medical data is pretty much personal and confidential.

Candidate: Yes, that’s something that we need to devise cautiously. But I think we have many
applications storing personal data and similar information in secured databases. We can use
e2ee(end to end encryptions) or a blockchain-based DB to ensure it. But having said that, I think
zoom will already have security levels as it had recently faced a backlash in the industry for lack
of proper web security.

Interviewer: Ok Great, let's move on to how you will validate your features’ effectiveness. Do
you have any metrics in mind?

Candidate: Yes, like any other mobile application, we can measure the app’s effectiveness by
the number of downloads and retention. Also, we can count the increase in physician
consultations from the app to measure the response. It would give us a better picture of how
efficiently the customers are using it and how much it's helping the physicians. I think this would
be my most significant matrix, followed by the former.

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 2. BigBasket
Interviewer: BigBasket is planning to modify its app (or build a new one) for older people.
You are a PM in BB? How would you go about with this, and what all changes would you
recommend?

Candidate: Can I assume the target segment to be 60+, and is there any specific reason why
BB is focusing on this segment -like monetisation, user acquisition or engagement?

Interviewer: You can continue with your assumption; BB is still in the growing stage; hence all I
can say is monetisation is not their objective.

Candidate: Okay, I would like to focus more on user acquisition as we target a new segment.
Let me take a minute to gather my thoughts.

(While UE refers to how often a user uses the app, UA refers to gaining new users. As BB
doesn’t expect its customers to use the app daily, we can concentrate on the latter part.)

Interviewer: Yes, go ahead.

Candidate: Considering a typical older person, they would be more willing to purchase
groceries from stores or vendors. Now, due to the present scenario of COVID, online seems to
be the only safe option available for them. So, most of them would turn up for the BB app.

Candidate: I would like to start by analyzing the pain points for users in this segment. Most of
the users would now have started using the smartphones, and the possible pain points can be

1. Eyesight issues

2. Trust issues

3. Complex designs

4. Lack of guidance

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5. Difficulty in coping with continuous app update iterations

6. Language

Can I proceed and design features to address these pain points, or are there any additional pain
points you would want me to address?

Interviewer: No, you can go ahead.

Candidate: Okay, when it comes to apps, older people find it challenging to locate the icons or
read texts within the apps due to eyesight issues. Reasons for this can be small font size,
cluttered design, background/text contrast. Hence, I would like to have texts in a font less than
14, better contrast with well spaced-out icons. Reducing distance between the quantity picker
adding to the cart and having larger touch targets should make their journey easier. Also, a
customisable display size can also be added; This would solve issues regarding complex
design.

Next, coming to the language, we can give the option of local languages.

Usually, older people are a little skeptical when it comes to payment through apps before
delivery. Some of them might be new to digital payments also. Hence I would recommend COD
and delayed payments post-delivery (which already BB is using) in the new model.

Any error messages can be displayed as helper messages in a different tone of wordings and
steps to proceed further.

(Older people may report a feeling of apprehension and might be tensed on not being able to
sort an error while using the app.)

Also, it is common that older people want guidance more often to help with the app navigation,
as they usually tend to forget things. To address this, I would like to add on voice over guidance
along with the solution. Before they place their order, a voice service can be added that
mentions the cart’s total amount. Also, it would be better to avoid splitting tasks across multiple
screens.

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Interviewer: How does it work?

Candidate: With these features, a new tab can be brought inside the BB app. We can toggle
between the elderly tab and the default one using the switch option.

Interviewer: How will the user journey look like for an older person?

Candidate: While signing in for the first time, we can ask their age, based on which we can
change the default landing page. As mentioned, a toggle option is provided for every user using
which they can shift between 2 different themes.

Interviewer: Okay, how will you know if these all solutions are solving their pain points? (This is
another way of asking how will you measure the success of your app)

Candidate:
- Number of orders placed using this tab/ screen
- Number of increased users in the age bracket of 60+
- MAUs and DAUs for that specific mode
- Can be measured using number of orders by unique users & screen time in that mode

132
IIM INDORE INTERVIEW
EXPERIENCES

133
 SUMMERS 2020

Full Name Debrupa Kar

Company Optum

Title of role offered Product Management intern

What was the initial selection process? Applied on Placement portal. Got shortlisted.

Was there a GD of the group round? If Yes. Topic: Is Virat Kohli better or Sachin Tendulkar
yes, please mention the topic.

Were there any special pre-processes No.

before the interview? If yes, describe

How many rounds of interviews did you 2

have?

Describe your Interview Experience in as ● Not asked for any case study.
much detail as possible (all rounds) ● Had 2 interviews. The first one was a stress HR
interview.
● 1st Interview: Questions basically revolved around my
previous work experience and my final year academic
project.
● Kept drilling down into whatever points I was raising
with respect to why I chose the particular topic, why I
chose to go ahead with my solution approach, what were
the challenges I faced and most importantly, to think and
tell about some of the alternative ways of how I should
have approached or implemented the project
● 2nd Interview: Technical interview wherein he delved
deep into an academic project I did during my Engg

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Outcome of Rounds (whether selected/ Selected
could not make it)

What do you think went well? Interviewer was trying to assess my creative and on the
spot thinking skills. Went well on this because the
questions were mainly on my work experience and
academic projects which I had worked intensively on so
could answer off the beat questions on the same

What could have been better? Could have answered more crisply on the topics.
Basically, articulation could have been better.

Any tips for candidates preparing for a ● Should be able to convey your point to the interviewer
Product Management interview? in as simplified manner as possible using minimal time
● Try being inquisitive about apps and websites around
you, try finding out things that you feel need rectification
and try to understand ways to fix that problem feature
● Try following on some frameworks (apply it in the
interview without explicitly mentioning about it, the
interviewer will be impressed and you will get a structure
to follow)

Any tips for candidates preparing for a ● Should be able to convey your point to the interviewer
Product Management interview? in as simplified manner as possible using minimal time
● Try being inquisitive about apps and websites around
you, try finding out things that you feel need rectification
and try to understand ways to fix that problem feature
● Try following on some frameworks (apply it in the
interview without explicitly mentioning about it, the
interviewer will be impressed and you will get a structure
to follow)

135
Full Name Kanika

Company OLX

Title of role offered Product Management Intern

What was the initial selection Resume shortlist / Technical Interview / HR Interview
process?

Was there a GD of the group No

round? If yes, please mention the
topic.

Were there any special No

pre-processes before the
interview? If yes, describe

How many rounds of interviews 2

did you have?

Describe your Interview Round 1 Technical Interview

Experience in as much detail as Interviewer: Introduce yourself
possible (all rounds) Interviewer: Why product management role?
Me: It will help me to diversify my knowledge by working with
different teams…
Interviewer: Which app do you use daily?
Me: WhatsApp
Interviewer: Tell us what you want to change/add in this app?
Me: I gave them 4 points like ask for the permission of the
person before adding them to the group, preview voice
messages, etc.
Interviewer: How would you go about doing that?
Me: Customer survey Check their needs and see the feasibility
Discuss with different teams and see the trade off implement all
the feasible points

Interviewer: How would you increase the revenue of WhatsApp?

Me: Gave them 4 solutions like collaboration with restaurants

136
 and giving recommendations to people about newly opened
places, focus on the elder population by collaborating with music
apps so that they could share their playlist, displaying ads at the
bottom without stopping the function of WhatsApp, etc.

Interview: Guesstimate: No. of fleets in India (domestic)

Round 2 HR Interview
Interviewer:
1) Why OLX? Why product management role?
2) Family background
3) What do you know about OLX (in detail)
Told them about the recent development in the app and new
features.
4) Are you fine with Gurgaon (OLX office location)? Are you
okay with the unstructured culture of the company?

Outcome of Rounds (whether Selected

selected/ could not make it)

What do you think went well? In my feedback they told me that they liked my intelligence and
the drive for this role
Otherwise I think my approach towards the problems and
multiple solutions to it was a plus point

What could have been better? Maybe guesstimate part could have been better

Any tips for candidates preparing Read well about the company. It may generate brownie points if
for a Product Management you know some latest news/innovation of the company/industry
interview?

137
Full Name Kartik Bhalla

Company Mahindra Comviva

Title of role offered Product Management Intern

What was the initial selection Resume Shortlisting & Personal Interview
process?

Was there a GD of the group No

round? If yes, please mention the
topic.

Were there any special No

pre-processes before the
interview? If yes, describe

How many rounds of interviews did 1

you have?

Describe your Interview Experience CV Ques-

in as much detail as possible (all I was asked questions from my work ex projects, acad projects
rounds) from undergrad.
Was asked to elaborate on the metrics used in one of the
projects

Outcome of Rounds (whether Selected

selected/ could not make it)

What do you think went well? Thorough knowledge about my CV & other technical details

Any tips for candidates preparing Go through the book “Divide & Conquer by Lewis Lin”. Focus on
for a Product Management the ideation process, revise the metrics & do some research
interview? about the latest happenings & changes in the new upcoming
products.

138
Full Name Tejaswani

Company OLX

Title of role offered Product Manager

What was the initial selection Technical PI + HR PI

process?

Was there a GD of the group No

round? If yes, please mention the
topic.

Were there any special No

pre-processes before the interview?
If yes, describe

How many rounds of interviews did 2

you have?

Describe your Interview Experience Round 1 - The interview started with the questions on my
in as much detail as possible (all resume. They were centered around my work ex and previous
rounds) internships. Post this I was given a case, where I had to
suggest a product which could promote short films. I
suggested the suitable features and the reason for choosing
those features. I also suggested how the owners as well as
users could monetize through the product. There were some
questions about the solution I put forth. After this, I was given a
guesstimate to estimate the number of auto rickshaws in
Indore.

Round 2 – HR interview. HR questions like why do you want to

join us, what do you expect from this internship; about OLX,
strengths & weaknesses, etc. were asked.

Outcome of Rounds (whether Selected

selected/ could not make it)

139
What do you think went well? Structured approach and suitable reasoning in case as well as
guesstimate helped me in cracking the interview.

What could have been better? I should have known about OLX in more detail.

Any tips for candidates preparing Be logical in your approach with good reasons backing every
for a Product Management suggestion you make. Interviewers are more interested in
interview? approach than the product as they want people who can solve
their problems with the right approach.

140
Full Name Sharath Kamath Shevgur

Company Walmart Labs

Title of role offered Product Intern

What was the initial selection Resume based selection

process?

Was there a GD of the group Yes

round? If yes, please mention the Topic: Should governments adopt BitCoin
topic.

Were there any special No

pre-processes before the
interview? If yes, describe

How many rounds of interviews 3 (Approximately 45 minutes each)

did you have?

Describe your Interview 1st round

Experience in as much detail as ● Tell me about yourself: I walked him through my entire
possible (all rounds) resume but highlighted the points that were related to aspects of
my life where I (unknowingly) acted as a product manager.
Example: While talking about my fest coordinator POR, I spoke
about how we developed an app and a website for the fest

● Choose one favorite app on your phone right now: I

chose CRED and spoke about it at length. I not only spoke
about the user experience and the design elements, but also the
business model. It is important to understand the business angle
behind every decision as well.

● Increase the user base of CRED by 1M: CRED is

basically building a user base of honest folks who will pay back
the credit card bills on time. This means they are credit worthy. I
suggested allowing the users to lend to other users within the
app (microfinancing) and peer to peer money transfer.

141
2nd round
● Tell me about yourself: I told my interviewer my entire
first interview was based on this question. He asked me not to
answer this question and moved on.

● Design a wheelchair for an old person. You have

unlimited resources: I listed down all possible problems that an
old person might have. Ranging from mobility, back-ache to
Arthritis and Parkinson’s. Interviewer asked me to focus only on
mobility and back ache. I remember suggesting memory foam
cushioning, easier controls for navigation, GPS, tri-wheels that
could move up even stairs etc. This discussion went for about
20 minutes.
OTT platforms like Hotstar stream sports (Cricket for example)
and have millions of viewers. Yet there is no way for fans for
interact and discuss the match online. Develop a feature and
design KPIs for the same: This question was more along the
lines of designing the KPIs. The interviewer had made it pretty
clear he wanted the fans to discuss the match. The easiest
solution was to include a chat box (like YouTube chat). I also
suggested bringing in commentators/ retired cricketers onto the
live chat. To determine the success of this chat box I developed
some basic KPIs like No. of chats per minute, No. of unique
users per match etc.

3rd round
● Tell me about yourself: This round was to check for a
personality fit. Hence, I kept this part short and completed this
within a minute or two.
● Tell me the values of Walmart: I did not know the answer
to this. The interviewer moved on.
● Increase Amazon Prime subscriptions in India: <I cannot
recall how I answered this question. He asked me this question
because I also had a shortlist for Amazon>
● Favorite subject and professor in undergrad. Why?
Some more NPAD questions

142
Outcome of Rounds (whether Selected
selected/ could not make it)

What do you think went well? Built a great rapport with each one of the interviewers Took my
time in answering each question. Asked a lot of questions and
did not rush into arriving at the solution Honesty and Talking out
Loud

What could have been better? My past experiences coincidentally helped me in the interview
rounds. I was definitely not prepared for a ‘Prod Man’ interview
.Learnt more about the values of Walmart

Any tips for candidates preparing Stay up to date with the trends in the software industry –
for a Product Management especially the UI and UX part
interview? Introspect to find out if you (or your colleagues) have worked on
building any apps/ websites. Keep those experiences as handy
talking points

143
Full Name Bhagyashree Dinesh

Company Microsoft

Title of role offered Program Management intern

What was the initial selection Resume shortlist

process?

Was there a GD of the group No

round? If yes, please mention the
topic.

Were there any special Product design round- Topic was “Design any product that
pre-processes before the solves problems faced by elderly people”
interview? If yes, describe

How many rounds of interviews did 2

you have?

Describe your Interview Experience Round 1 (30 mins): Tell me about yourself, which revolved
in as much detail as possible (all around my reason for taking engineering and my interest in
rounds) technology. I was asked to design an innovative water heater. I
designed a product that uses AI to set the temperature based
on the external climate and incorporates Cloud and IoT to have
some additional functionalities.

Round 2 (45 mins): Design a learning app for Physics for high
school students. I designed an app, which has different
customer journeys for weak and brilliant students and offers
different customer experiences based on a student's
intelligence. A few questions were asked about my work
experience, which involved making a networking chip for
Microsoft Datacenter.

Outcome of Rounds (whether Selected

selected/ could not make it)

144
What do you think went well? Structuring the answer and applying different technologies to
use a product

What could have been better? Could have brainstormed more before answering, to design
more innovative product in round 1

Any tips for candidates preparing ● Try to keep interviewer engaged by checking with them
for a Product Management timely that they are following you
interview? ● Have some basic idea about use of different
technologies and do not throw buzzing technology like AR/VR,
AI/ML simply without understanding the use case.
● Ask good questions to the interviewer about the role or
company so that they understand your interest well.

145
Full Name Prateek Pole

Company Enlume Technologies

Title of role offered Product intern

What was the initial selection The initial round was about submitting a pre process. I was given
process? the problem statement to enhance the features of WhatsApp and
define the metrics for measuring the success of each
enhancement.

Was there a GD of the group No

round? If yes, please mention the
topic.

Were there any special Yes, I had a preprocess to come up with the enhancements for
pre-processes before the WhatsApp and the metrics to measure the success of each of
interview? If yes, describe them

How many rounds of interviews did 2

you have?

Describe your Interview First Round- I was given a case study to solve. I was given a list
Experience in as much detail as of features and the pros and cons of each of them. I had to
possible (all rounds) prioritise and let them know the most important feature and the
least important one.

Second Round- I was asked on the concepts of product

management. Questions such as difference between wireframe
and mockup? What is a prototype? Define MVP. A part of the
interview was also HR where they asked me about my strengths
and weaknesses and back it up by an incident.

Outcome of Rounds (whether Selected

selected/ could not make it)

146
What do you think went well? My case study round went well. I was able to comprehend the
needs and thus differentiate between the must wants and the
probable ones. The HR part was good too as I had backed it up
with situations and also tried to show another two strengths
through the incident other than the ones already mentioned.

What could have been better? Definitions could have been better

Any tips for candidates preparing Be thorough with the basics and the concepts. Use the
for a Product Management framework to answer rather than mentioning the framework.
interview? Keep going through mock PM interviews. Try to criticise any app
on a weekly basis and see what could have been better and
easier to use. Try to have a basic overview on wireframes and
mockups.

147
 SUMMERS 2021
Full Name Anshul Gupta

Company Walmart Global Tech

Title of the role offered Product Manager

What was the initial Resume Shortlisting

selection process?

Was there a GD for the Yes, design an app for Electric Vehicle owners to charge their vehicles
group? If yes, please
mention the topic

Were there any special No

pre-processes/
submissions before the
interview? If yes, please
mention

How many rounds of 3

interviews did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: Group Discussion on Product Design an app for electric vehicle
experience in as much owners for them to be able to charge their vehicles. (15 mins of GD)
detail as possible (all
rounds) The discussion was expected to be structured and the key points that
need to be covered were clarifying and scoping the problem statement,
defining user personas, selecting and focusing one of the user personas
and defining the user journey of that user persona. What are the app
features you would want in the app and how you would monetize them
and the metrics to analyze the success of the features.

Round 2: Personal Interview – Round 1 by a Product Manager of

Walmart (25-30 mins)

148
This round is about resume go through by the candidate and a brief case
on any domain of product management
1. Interviewer starts by introducing herself. And then ask me to introduce
myself (5 mins)
2. Interviewer asks more about my work experience in Deloitte USI and
Thorogood Associates and the nature of my work. (8 - 10 mins)
3. Interviewer gives me a product design case on to design/enhance the
camera experience for the elderly people (12- 15 mins)
-> choose to design app from scratch or do enhancements on an existing
app
4. Any questions for the interviewer (5 mins)

Round 3: Personal Interview with a Senior Leader (30 mins)

149
Full Name Nandakumar S G

Company Walmart

Title of the role offered Product Manager Intern

What was the initial selection Resume based shortlisting (Work experience > 12 months)
process?

Was there a GD for the group? Yes

If yes, please mention the topic Topic: Skype was a market leader in the video conferencing. But
with the advent of pandemic and new products they have lost
significant market shares. Discuss and come up with a strategy to
recapture the market.

Were there any special No

pre-processes/ submissions
before the interview? If yes,
please mention

How many rounds of interviews 2 (Approximately 30-45 minutes each)

did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: Started with a question about a project/event not on my
experience in as much detail resume that I was part of that really gave value to me. Post that
as possible (all rounds) there were questions about my work experience and the various
projects that I have been part of.

I was asked my favorite application, and on mentioning was asked

to come up with strategies to monetize. Then I had to take through
the user journey of one of the recommendations. Had to mention
various metrics that could be used to evaluate.

Round 2: Started with introducing myself and directly to a case.

Was asked to imagine a store which has been facing long queues
at the checkout counters during peak events and weekends. Then
was asked to analyze the problem and come up with a solution for
the same.

150
Outcome of the rounds Selected
(whether selected / could not
make it)

What do you think went well? Round 1, my ideas on the pricing strategy was appreciated.

What could have been better? In round 2, I could have started in a more structured way. User
journey map should have been done properly.

Any tips for candidates Prepare on CIRCLE, RICE and A/B testing. Prepare on a favorite
preparing for a PM Interview? application and modification of the same.

151
Full Name Akanksha Trivedi

Company Walmart

Title of the role offered Prodman

What was the initial selection CV shortlist followed by GD

process?

Was there a GD for the group? If Yes, Case based GD on the topic “Design an app for electric
yes, please mention the topic vehicles charging” (Three major questions were given to discuss
the case-user journey, major features)

Were there any special No

pre-processes/ submissions
before the interview? If yes,
please mention

How many rounds of interviews 2

did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: Included basic HR questions, guesstimate (budget for
experience in as much detail as feeding a school for one year), Choose any favorite app-best
possible (all rounds) features, improvements etc.

Round 2: Why Prod man, Why will you chose Walmart above
Asian Paints (given I have work experience in Paint industry) ,
Case (design a learning
app-any special, unique feature), Given unlimited funding-which
feature will you include in above designed app, what if you
become CEO of YouTube,

Round 3: NA

Outcome of the rounds (whether Selected

selected / could not make it)

152
What do you think went well? Followed the frameworks for case solving, Was confident and
creative on the spot

What could have been better?

Any tips for candidates preparing Go through NPAD, case books, domain sessions , practice
for a Product Management cases and guesstimates with friends
Interview?

153
Full Name Atharva Kulkarni

Company Walmart

Title of the role offered Product Manager

What was the initial selection There was a resume shortlisting process
process?

Was there a GD for the Yes. The topic of GD was – You wish to design an app for electric
group? If yes, please mention vehicle owners to facilitate and optimize their car/battery charging
the topic operations.

Were there any special There were no special pre-processes prior to the interview
pre-processes/ submissions
before the interview? If yes,
please mention

How many rounds of GD + 1 technical round + 1 HR round

interviews did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: This was a technical round. It was mostly related to my work
experience in as much detail experience. Although I did not have work experience in product
as possible (all rounds) management, I had work experience in retail. So, there were a few
conceptual questions on retail space. There was also a small case
study – 3rd party marketplaces are eating into the market shares of
Walmart. What can be done to rectify the situation? In this case, I got a
lot of input/help from the interviewer and it was more of an interviewer
driven case.

Round 2: Round 2 was a generic HR round. I was asked general HR

questions about my strengths, my goals, any important projects and
learnings that I had from my previous work experience. A thorough
study of NPAD would be sufficient to clear this round.

Outcome of the rounds Each round was an eliminatory round and I was selected in both and
(whether selected / could not went on to convert Walmart
make it)

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What do you think went well? I was concise in my answers and did not beat around the bush. There
may be a few technical questions which you may not have answers to.
In such cases, do not attempt to globe and say something that you do
not know about. Additionally, in the HR interview, you can have a small
talk with the interviewer based on their comfort level. My HR
interviewer was very friendly and we had a brief discussion about her
child’s school and how online classes have kept him less busy.

What could have been The case I solved in my first interview did not have a proper structure.
better? Had there been a proper structure to the case, I would have had higher
confidence of making it till the next round.

Any tips for candidates In any interview, try and maintain a warm and welcoming smile
preparing for a Product throughout the interview. There may be cases where some questions
Management Interview? may catch you off-guard, but do not lose your calm and be yourself in
such instances.
From a technical perspective, make sure to practice cases based on
different frameworks. Read about the company, any recent news, any
technological advancements in the concerned industry before the
interview. Do not beat around the bush in case you do not know the
answer to a question. Always be truthful and trust your preparation.

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Full Name Sara John

Company Walmart Labs

Title of the role offered Product Manager Intern

What was the initial selection

Resume based shortlisting (work experience> 12 months)
process?

Was there a GD for the group? If Yes

yes, please mention the topic Topic: Ideate a mobile phone for children of the age group 9-15.
Discuss the user persona, all features possible and the best
features based on priority

Were there any special No

pre-processes/ submissions
before the interview? If yes,
please mention

How many rounds of interviews 2 (Approximately 1 hour each)

did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: Started with basic introduction and then I was asked
experience in as much detail as to walk the interviewer through my resume, mainly the projects
possible (all rounds) that I had worked on at my previous workplace.
Case: A soft drinks bottling plant based out of Bangalore which
had been doing well previously is now not making enough
money.
After completing the Root Cause Analysis of the case, I was
asked to go ahead and suggest a change as a PM from the
technology POV. If I were to implement an app to solve the
issue, what would be the key features that I would include.
Product Improvement question: Asked about my favorite mobile
application, which are the features I like and dislike in the app.
Was also asked to suggest a few new changes that I would like
to bring in the App.

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 Round 2: The start was very similar to Round 1.
Case: You are the owner of Oyo rooms charged at Rs 2400/day
with the usual 11-11 check-in-checkout policy. You have noticed
that 80% of the customers are businessmen who occupy the
room only for 10% of the day. For their benefit, you have
decided to come up with a new provision of charging for rooms
on an hourly basis.
Come up with a pricing strategy that would be a win-win for
both the customer and for yourself.
After deciding on the pricing strategy, I was asked about what
would be the various marketing measures that I would be
adopting.
Product Improvement question: A common issue faced by
employees who go on vacation is the piling up of emails once
they rejoin. This might lead to missing out on important emails.
Suggest two features that you as the PM of Outlook could bring
in to solve this.

Outcome of the rounds (whether Selected

selected / could not make it)

What do you think went well? Followed a structured approach in solving the cases. Asked for
a minute to think before starting with solving the case. Thought
aloud whenever I could so that the interviewer was with me all
the time. Connected experiences from my workplace to come
up with practical solutions to the questions asked.

What could have been better? The concluding question is always about if I have a question for
them. Could have come up with a better question specific only
to Walmart.

Any tips for candidates preparing 1. Being well aware of the Product Management basics
for a Product Management such as frameworks, prioritization techniques boost the
Interview? confidence. The ProdLab Instagram handle is a very good
resource for the same.
2. Always try to think aloud so that the interviewer is kept
engaged.

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3. Have a very clear idea about the resume and try to give
nice and crisp answers to all the resume and NPAD related
questions.
4. Talk to seniors placed at the same company for a
before-hand idea about the rounds. This said, keep yourselves
open and ready for surprises as well.

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Full Name Shivangi Mahajan

Company Walmart

Title of the role offered Product Manager Intern

What was the initial selection Resume Shortlist

process?

Was there a GD for the group? Yes, GD: a new mobile phone is being launched for children aged
If yes, please mention the topic 9-14 yrs. Discuss 1. the user personas, 2. Features 3. Key
features

Were there any special No

pre-processes/ submissions
before the interview? If yes,
please mention

How many rounds of interviews 2

did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: Introduction, discussion about work experience,

experience in as much detail as Case: Design a Smart Refrigerator. Discussion on features, why
possible (all rounds) we need this refrigerator, how will it be better, Consumer Journey,
KPIs.

Round 2: Why Product Management, what do you not like about UI

of Flipkart, user personas of Flipkart, how would you improve it for
people aged 12-18, app that you use the most, features you like
and do not like about it, qualities of a product manager

Outcome of the rounds Cleared both

(whether selected / could not
make it)

What do you think went well? Structured and creative thinking. Interviewers were helping out.
They wanted to know how one is able to think and observe things
around them

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What could have been better? Implementation of User personas, consumer journey and KPIs

Any tips for candidates NPAD, know about the role and link it with your past, practice
preparing for a Product cases, talk to seniors/friends
Management Interview?

160
Full Name Vivekanand Pai

Company Microsoft

Title of the role offered Product Manager Intern

What was the initial selection Resume Short Listing. Relevant Work ex is preferred.
process?

Was there a GD for the No

group? If yes, please
mention the topic

Were there any special Microsoft had written case interview. Topic of the written case was
pre-processes/ submissions "Due to the pandemic many employees are forced to work from home.
before the interview? If yes, Considering their new work model, how can Microsoft help
please mention organizations ensure the well-being and success of their employees.
As a Microsoft PM, think of ways in which you can leverage and
innovate upon Microsoft products to meet the evolved needs." It was
30 minutes for writing the case document. 15 minutes for review by 2
panel members

How many rounds of 3 rounds (1hr each)

interviews did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: In the first round it started with my work ex project and then
experience in as much detail the cloud concepts as I had worked on AWS. Also, the interviewer
as possible (all rounds) asked me to pick up one project which I had worked upon and given a
chance what improvement would you do and what would be the
success metrics. Next was one case and then it revolved about the
metrics which I would consider for success. The case asked in this
round was " As a PM at Netflix you are given the responsibility to
increase the adaption of Netflix in the age group of 60+. How would
you approach this problem."

Round 2: 2nd round was again a case-based interview taken by

Senior PM. This round had 2 PM case questions. First question was
"Design an alarm clock for blind people" and 2nd was " As a PM of
WhatsApp in the year 2018-19, you are given the responsibility to

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 decide the timeout for the newly implemented "Stories" feature. What
all things would you consider while arriving at the timeout value".

Round 3: 3rd round was again a case based round taken by the
Director. One was a PM question "As a PM how would you approach
solving the out of memory problem in mobiles". Another question in
this round was an aptitude question similar to the CAT question.

Outcome of the rounds Selected

(whether selected / could not
make it)

What do you think went Mostly they were always looking for product management case
well? solutions and the approach to the solution rather than solutions. I
followed the CIRCLES framework as much as possible for all the
cases. So the approach to the problem went well.

What could have been I could have prepared better for prod man interviews. YouTube has a
better? lot of resources for preparation which I did not go through.

Any tips for candidates Do check the YouTube videos for PM interviews. They will be very
preparing for a Product much helpful for preparing for the interviews. Product School is one
Management Interview? such channel which is helpful. Follow the framework and do go
through a few of the PM interviews on YouTube.
Also be thorough with your resume as much as possible.
Prepare for one of your favorite apps questions like “Why do you like
the app? What improvements would you suggest? How would you
prioritize the features? How would you measure the success of the
implemented feature?”

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Full Name PRITIKA ROY CHOWDHURY

Company MICROSOFT

Title of the role Program Manager

offered

What was the initial Cv Shortlisting Case Study Round 2 Interviews

selection process?

Was there a GD for No

the group? If yes,
please mention the
topic

Were there any Yes, 1 Case Study Round

special
pre-processes/
submissions before
the interview? If
yes, please mention

How many rounds 2

of interviews did you
have?

Describe your Round 1: Case Study round. We were given a topic and had to solve the case
interview in a word document in 30 mins.
experience in as
much detail as Round 2: Discussion of the case solution. Had to come up with a GTM,
possible (all rounds) pricing model, case solution walkthrough, detailed technical discussion on
one feature as to which algorithm to choose and how would it work,
competitor analysis and partnership analysis.

Round 3: Introduction, internship experience, new case study with similar

questions as in round 2, HR questions like who is a good manager/ bad
manager, your expectations from the company and as a PM.

163
Outcome of the Selected
rounds (whether
selected / could not
make it)

What do you think Case discussions

went well? Discussing every feature, analyzing the feasibility, viability, picking top
features for MVP, coming up with varied pricing models for TGs and the GTM.
Ask the interviewer at each step, if he/she is okay with the approach and if
you should continue with it or change.

What could have I could have come up with a better design for the interface. Had less time so I
been better? had to use PowerPoint. Using Figma for designing is always better.

Any tips for Try to come up with original ideas.

candidates The more ideas you come up with the better. Also, consider the feasibility of
preparing for a each idea and tell the interviewer which idea would work and which idea
Product wouldn’t.
Management
Interview?

164
Full Name Bharadwaj Dungroth

Company Microsoft

Title of the role offered Program Manager

What was the initial selection Resume based shortlisting

process?

Was there a GD for the group? No

If yes, please mention the
topic

Were there any special The first round was common for everyone. We were asked to think
pre-processes/ submissions in the digital well-being perspective of an existing application of
before the interview? If yes, Microsoft considering the work from home scenario. Everyone was
please mention given 15 mins to think and mail the idea to them and then a short
interview was done in a round-robin method where the interviewer
joined the room and asked to explain the idea. This was an
elimination round and the shortlisted candidates progressed to the
further rounds.

How many rounds of 3(approx. 30min, 40min. 50min respectively)

interviews did you have?

Describe your interview Round 1: Started with an introduction and the interviewer then
experience in as much detail asked me to build an ed-tech application. I took it ahead with the
as possible (all rounds) consulting interview strategy, asking him the requirements at every
stage. I took those inputs and built the specs as per the
requirements.

Round 2: This was about my resume; I had a project (an electronics

product prototype) and I was asked how I would monetize this if I
released this as a commercial product into the market. Then I was
asked about what additional features I would add to make it more
profitable and to increase the customer base. Later I was asked to
innovate the lock screen for different types of customers.

165
 Round 3: I was asked how I would improve the engagement in one
of Microsoft's products. I started off identifying the existing pain
points and mostly revolved around improving those features and
also understanding the psychographics.

Outcome of the rounds Selected

(whether selected / could not
make it)

What do you think went well? Interacting with interviewers at every round. I asked 1-2 questions
in each round, pertaining to the company’s products, emerging
markets and I brought in my experience while answering the
questions about redesigning a product.

What could have been better? I froze for a few moments in the second round and got a bit nervous
as I was too anxious about clearing the round. Though I calmed
down eventually, I should have taken a moment to calm down
before joining the interview and gathering my thoughts.

Any tips for candidates Think as a customer when you are asked to design a product.
preparing for a Product Recall all your experiences using various applications and services
Management Interview? and what could have improved your experience, align that with the
technical and business knowledge you have.

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Full Name Shrinivas K G

Company Optum

Title of the role offered Product Management

What was the initial selection Resume Shortlist

process?

Was there a GD for the group? No

If yes, please mention the
topic

Were there any special No

pre-processes/ submissions
before the interview? If yes,
please mention

How many rounds of 4

interviews did you have?

Describe your interview In all rounds, it was 1 on 1 interview

experience in as much detail
as possible (all rounds)
Round 1: This round went for 40- 45 mins.
The interviewer told me to briefly go through my resume and the
follow up questions were shot related to my work experience
1. What is the work that I did and what was the impact on the
client?
2. What were your learnings?

Further, the interview went on with the job description and about the
company
1. Asked about optum and the products by optum
2. What do I know about product management?
3. Why prodman?
4. How will this role help me achieve my long term goal?

167
And more follow up HR and resume questions. Also asked about my
PORs. Then she asked me whether I had any questions.

Prepare good questions and try to make conversation here after

listening to their answer, which will end it on a good note.

Based on my question, I got a follow up question on how Old people

will be able to avail health care service in the digital world and as a
product manager how will I do it?

Got selected for next round

Round 2: Here an associate director of a product interviewed me.

Tried to keep it very interactive here. It went for ½ hour.

First, he asked me to briefly introduce myself. Then the next

question was: keeps me motivated or what do I do to motivate
myself at hard times. Talked about Naruto where we could relate,
and the conversation extended to one punch man and questioned
about the qualities of the protagonist and a product manager.

Next he asked me about my goals and what Optum do in health

care. How will the role and company help in reaching my goals?

Who is a product manager and what are his/her qualities? What is

the role of product manager?

Asked whether I have any questions and tried to put up a

conversation here. Cleared this round

Round 3: This round went around 5-6mins.

Asked about introduction. What is product management? Are you

really interested in this role? What is my previous experience and
tell briefly about it?

Cleared this round.

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 Round 4: HR round
Tell me about yourself and other basic HR questions
Any doubts or questions I have. I asked about work life and culture.
Were able to relate and gave a positive reply.

Outcome of the rounds Cleared all rounds and selected

(whether selected / could not
make it)

What do you think went well? The connection with the interviewers while answering and they were
able to relate with the answers I gave. With this the conversations
extended and went interactive. Almost everywhere I was able to use
STAR approach and that made a great impact

Any tips for candidates Go through IIMA product and IT prep book. Watched videos of
preparing for a Product Exponent channels to get better knowledge of case solving
Management Interview?

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